


Surfer Kid and Ghost Boy

by exul_ansis



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Demigods (Percy Jackson), Anxious Nico di Angelo, Bisexual Percy Jackson, Break Up, Gaming, M/M, Minor Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo is Bad at Feelings, POV Percy Jackson, Panic Attacks, Past Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson has ADHD, Percy Jackson is a Good Bro, Sally Jackson is a Good Parent, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, Work In Progress, a lot of it at times, and high school is hard when you're nd, but percy is too so anyway, exclusively weed but i mean, grammarly is my only beta, percy and nico and hazel are the gamers, the whole fic is just domestic af
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 167,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exul_ansis/pseuds/exul_ansis
Summary: Percy's a frustrated, underachieving gamer in his senior year of high school who has genuinely no idea how to plan his life long-term. He meets some (emo?) guy on this NuOlympus game who has apparently nothing to do with him whatsoever; and it shows.It’s not until Percy starts to know the younger boy a bit better that he finds out they probably have, actually,too muchin common.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo & Percy Jackson, Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Comments: 118
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this now has a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tIwlN57IbIw8wSQ5r2ukf?si=gTRZytUoQ2ilevf7IsSYMw) (ง ื▿ ื)ว

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so it's late, i'm tired and impulsive, i probably shouldn't publish this because i don't know when i will have the possibility to update, but guess what i'm doing it anyway.
> 
> the only things you need to know is that there will be a lot of game description in the beginning but it'll fade away eventually. if you're not someone who is into gaming and don't know how it works you can obviously try and read but i'm sorry in advance for not explaining the mechanics and everything. also the game itself is not real but the rules and the settings and stuff are all taken from the game Apex for PS4 and pc (i believe?). i play it on PS4 so i don't know.
> 
> this said, i digress. enjoy!! (also necessary disclaimer: English is not my first language so feel free to correct me whenever)

As Percy was coming back home from school that afternoon, there was nothing he wished more than to just sit on his comfortable and tall desk chair, his controller in hand, and mindlessly game until his mom would have called him for dinner that evening.

School was a bitch and he was still not used to actually put in some effort. Despite he had tried, his best accomplishment had been scoring a mediocre D- on almost all his courses. That frustrated him so much that he was just seriously thinking about giving up on his education for at least the tenth time from the beginning of the school year.

His laziness still persisted even after that last time he was sent to the principal for some (mostly verbal) fight he had in the hall with some senior kids who were picking on his younger brother, when she had warned him about his grade situation.

He thought about that while he eyed his building’s front door and took out his keys. He purposefully ignored the thought of starting early on a couple projects his professors had assigned that morning, because his mind was already completely drained of every tiny bit of will and energy that he had woken up with.

During those last months of boredom and demotivation, the only thing that could still give him satisfaction had been gaming; his computer wasn’t really suited for online gaming, but he had nothing else anyway.

He had bought a PS4 controller a few years prior, connected it to his PC, and started falling for first-person shooter and role-playing games.

There was this one, Nu Olympus, that he was just obsessed with lately; it was another one of those team shooters in which you had to gather weapons and armors and shields and basically last as long as possible inside a constantly constricting ring. There was more to that, but those were the basics.

He sucked at it, at first. Leveling up was easy, he had figured, but gathering kills and damage seemed impossible. All he could see were his teammates nonchalantly rushing to gather items and killing people like they were experienced snipers or front-line soldiers while all he could do was hide from other players’ gunshots and bombs and whatever, trying not to die when just a minute or two in and hoping nobody would see how bad he was.

Now he was definitely getting better, though. Observing other players (both teammates and enemies) was one of the most useful things he had done, and that he still did, to gather experience and discover some tricks to last just a little bit longer each time.

Now he was around level 80, and he could consider himself more than decent. He still didn’t have more than seventy kills, but his aim and killing strategy were still something he needed to work on. So, it was fine like that.

After having entered his house and realizing with pleasure that his mom was still out for work, he locked the door behind him and found his way to his room through the small apartment. The kitchen area still smelled like pancakes from that morning, the scent of butter still lingering in the air, making him feel at home.

After taking off his light hoodie and dropping his backpack on the floor outside the door like he usually did to let his mother know he was home, Percy closed the door of his bedroom behind him. After doing so, he lowered his blinds to have a better vision of the screen, already anticipating the excitement of the day’s first match. His mother would always advise him to please not look at the screen in the dark for hours, not allowing him to play unless she was sure that at least some light could break into his room. Since he was now home alone, though, he had control for once.

He dropped on his rotating chair in front of his computer, the screen lighting up a few seconds after he woke up his computer from its sleep. The blue light of his screen and background illuminated the room and his face while he put on his wireless headphones and waited for the application to open and load; he took his controller in hand, playing with one of the stickers he attached to its back, and waited.

He threw his phone on the bed while waiting for the first match to start. When it came to choosing his character in the group, he chose the usual one. All of the twelve characters were inspired by the Greek Olympus gods (hence the name), and his favorite one had always been Hermes. He felt some kind of connection with him, probably because of the fact that his attack stats weren’t that good, but he still had many tricks up his sleeve; special abilities and all that. He wasn’t strong, but he was quick.

He decided he would have just stuck with him for the whole evening until eventually he would have got bored. He was determined to level up a bit while practicing his own combat strategy skills; that meant he still had to learn how to hide effectively and not be detected before firing.

The first match started, and everything seemed good.

He and his teammates landed pretty far from the others, taking their time gathering the best items they could find. Percy didn’t particularly care about the guns and shields, though. He needed to be able to take down someone else even in the case his items weren’t of any help. So, after signaling his teammates that he was going to move, pinging his direction on the map, he left them relatively behind and went to search for other players.

His two teammates were both more high-ranked than him anyway, so they would probably manage, he thought.

Fast forward to five minutes later, and he was being downed by an Athena sniper not too far from him. He didn’t wait for his teammates to revive him since he didn’t want to wait. They had left him to do his thing anyway, and they didn’t seem to care about where he was.

Leaving the match, he suddenly remembered the gift that his mom’s boyfriend had ordered for him online.

It was supposed to be delivered today, Percy thought.

He quickly straightened up, pushing onto the border of his desk to throw himself towards the door while still sitting on the chair, jumping off halfway through. As he opened the door and practically running towards the front door, he cursed at himself for not noticing the relatively small Amazon package placed just beside the entrance. The only thing he remembered opening that fast was the first surfboard that his friends got for him for Christmas a few years prior.

He threw away the tape keeping it sealed, and there it was: a wireless blue and black headset, complete with microphone and headphones with adjustable length.

“You’re one lucky asshole, Percy”, He muttered to himself, smiling dreamily while he stared at the set in his hands.

He quickly got up from the floor, not bothering to throw away the plastic and paper that had kept the item secured. His mom would have scolded him for that, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Percy ran back to his room, probably more excited than he should have been. Even though he was going for his nineteenth birthday that summer, he still found himself acting much more like a twelve-year-old kid when it came to gifts and toys. But, honestly, he had wanted that headset for months; so, fine, he was acting childishly. He didn’t blame himself for that.

It took only a few minutes for him to figure out how to connect the headset to his PC, and after connecting it to the PC’s Bluetooth, he was good to go.

When he put them on, he realized how well they seemed to isolate every other sound around him. He couldn’t hear anything apart from his breathing.

“This is so cool”, He told himself, grinning when he prepared for the following match.

He made sure his mic was working and decided that, even though he was practically dying to talk and comment on every single thing he saw, he would have pretended to be mature and rational. People didn’t want someone narrating every single one of their actions; it was also difficult to find people that could talk, too. The majority of players either didn’t have a microphone or were simply not interested in using it.

A couple short matches later, he managed to keep his promise to himself, talking only if necessary and keeping it short. Still, every time he tried for a less direct approach to killing, he always ended up being spotted first and then killed.

It frustrated him a bit more every time, and he was starting to feel like a newbie all over again. He huffed, continuing again with another match.

When his turn to choose was over, he couldn’t help but notice that one of his teammates (Ghost-something, he didn’t have that much time to read their name) had selected one of the rare characters. There were six gods that you could only unlock with money or drachmae, which was the currency of the game. One of them was Hades, this creepy and dark grim-reaper-like figure that had the power to summon skeleton-warriors to distract enemies and leave them open for attack.

Percy liked the character, but that just wasn’t his style.

He liked to keep it simple and fast. But, still, that sparked a sort of curiosity in him.

It was usually either rich and spoiled people or very high-rank players that chose Hades. Consequently, that was going to either be a pain in the ass for Percy, or a very good learning experience. Their other teammate, on the other hand, had chosen Artemis, one of the default characters. Whoever that was, they were probably good at long-range attacks.

Not a bad team, after all, he thought.

In the overview of his team, he could see that the Hades guy had more or less his same killing count, but whoever that was, they had to be really experienced. His level patch read “150”, and that led Percy’s eyes to widen a bit. Then, excitement rose inside of him at the thought of having someone like that in his own team. The Artemis guy was also above 70, which was encouraging.

Percy just adjusted his back on his chair, coming closer to the screen. He would have kept his eyes on the Hades guy for sure. They were probably a jerk, full of themselves and bragging about being cooler than you without even having to talk. But that was okay, as long as they wouldn’t have tried to actively sabotage him or anyone in the team.

The Hades guy chose where to land, and Percy noticed that he was yet again the only one with his mic on. That was fine, though, since he could focus on observing.

They landed not far from all the other players, and they split almost immediately to gather weapons and armors. As soon as he had collected his first assault rifle, Percy spotted a couple enemies coming towards him. He reacted quickly, firing away and taking one of them down and signaling the other one to his teammates out of habit. He knew they were probably not coming to get him, though, he could see that they were already dealing with someone else not far from his spot on the map. So, he hid and tried to focus on not getting hit.

He still didn’t have an armor, so he could have been dead with little effort from the other player’s part. Still, he knew his enemy couldn’t have that much protection themselves. He just needed to track them down and get this over with before reuniting with the others.

A few seconds later, someone was shooting at him from his side, and he moved just in time. Another couple shots and he would have been dead, but he managed to turn towards the direction of the fire to find the other player standing on a small grassy hill to his right.

He fired away as quickly as he could, taking them down with relative ease.

He sighed, maybe too noisily, into the microphone before noticing that the Artemis guy’s banner had simply disappeared from the left part of his screen.

They probably didn’t survive the close combat, Percy thought. Artemis was not a character with abilities useful in face-to-face matches. Despite that, Hades was still standing, even though his health wasn’t that full anymore.

Percy took whatever was left in the supply boxes he could find along the way while heading back to his other teammate, emptying the death boxes of his fallen enemies first. Now that he finally wore a decent armor and had some time to read, he eyed the other’s name on the banner to the left.

Their name was Ghost-King74, which really didn’t say anything to Percy except that this guy was, indeed, probably a self-important jerk. And also, pretty emo. Anybody who called themselves king of something needed to have some narcissistic feelings going on.

But, still, that didn’t matter much. Percy just needed to use them as a sort of model, if they showed they were good enough.

He kept on searching for their spot on the map until he found Hades inside the ruins of a huge temple, where all the death boxes on the ground told Percy that the place had probably been the center of a battle he didn’t partake in.

Dammit, he thought. He would have liked that for sure.

The Hades guy was taking his time going through items in the boxes and examining the area, not even bothering to acknowledge him. So, Percy did the same, trusting the other with the fact that they were probably alone now.

He gathered both a better shield and a quicker, rapid-fire weapon before turning toward his teammate, just to see them leaving the site without even signaling where they were going. Percy had expected something like that to happen, so he took his time too.

He gathered healing items and some grenades before following the other.

At that point, Percy was just curious to see how the other would do in combat. They did seem pretty confident, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were a talented player.

Percy stayed behind them, letting Hades take the lead. There didn’t seem to be any enemies yet, and there was no sign that other people had already been where they were heading. They stumbled upon a nice spot, and it looked like something apart from the rest of the map.

It was between two clear, small rivers you could walk through, and a few half-destroyed, small houses. The only way out of that place was where they came from, so it could have been a potentially good spot to station and wait for people to come. Percy would have liked that, but the Hades guy had other plans.

They started collecting everything they could take, and Percy had to bite back a sigh when he saw them replacing their armor with a gold-level-rarity one, the best in the whole game.

Of course, Percy thought. He was on his own, in the end. So, he too spent his time gathering items and searching for better versions of what he already had.

When he heard the game announcing the second round, he quickly eyed the map out of habit, just to check where his teammate was.

Just as he did that, he heard gunshots not far from him. Finally, he was alert again, briefly gazing at Hades' declining health points.

Percy was still inside one of the dwellings, but he managed to come out quickly enough to spot two enemies moving inside another building on the other side of the enclosed area.

He ran towards them, finding it curious that the guy didn’t even signal him to come and help. They evidently did want to play alone, but Percy wasn’t leaving them to deal with all that by themselves.

Also, he needed to gather kills. So, he ran towards the source of the noise, realizing that the Hades guy was probably almost down by then.

Percy entered the house where he knew he could take them from behind.

As soon as he spotted one of them behind a hole in the white wall, he fired away.

He downed that one easily, hiding behind the wall again when he noticed the other one turning towards him and trying to aim at him with their rifle. He remained hidden, waiting for his enemy to get close to him first, hoping his strategy wouldn’t fail him.

Their enemies probably couldn’t leave the building anyway, since the only way out was the entrance Percy was close to.

Sure enough, the other player left the room a few seconds later, ending up beside him.

“Thought so”, He murmured while turning towards the movement, aiming and firing before the other could have had the chance to raise their weapon.

He still took in some damage but, being the one who stroke first, he downed the other before he could run out of health points. He had been lucky this one had been stupid enough to go search for him without bothering to heal themselves first.

Going through his enemy’s death box and collecting a couple more healing items, he entered the room to see Hades on the floor.

He was bleeding out, but he was not dead yet.

He revived him while realizing that, despite the other squad being three people, Ghost-King74 had still managed to take down one of them; which was not bad considering that they were alone in a small space and without cover.

That could have been luck, though, Percy thought. Didn’t mean anything for now.

After watching Hermes crouch down and heal Hades, he seriously hoped luck would be on their side for a few more moments. It was risky, not scanning the area when reviving someone else.

But Percy was just curious, really. He wanted to keep an eye on the guy.

When Hermes was done, he received a “thank you” message from Hades, the subtitled text appearing at the bottom of Percy’s screen.

“No prob”, Percy responded nonchalantly. “That one was easy.”

And just like that, the Hades guy started walking away again. Percy strolled behind him, this time determined not to leave him alone, even though that was probably the last thing the other would have wanted. But Ghost-guy owned him that, at least.

Also, you don’t play a team game if you don’t like teams. Going solo is not how you win matches.

They kept on going, Hades being the one in front most of the time. This time, though, his teammate seemed to give Percy at least some idea of what they were going to do. Hades was sometimes pinging locations around them to let him know the direction in which they were heading to; even though they still didn’t wait for him to catch up, Percy appreciated the thought.

They kept on moving from place to place on the map, going more towards the center to avoid being outside the following ring for too long.

They didn’t meet anyone, but that was probably because they kept on moving. Slowly but surely, the squad count was going down.

They ended up being one of the five teams still in the game, and that felt promising.

Percy still had no idea how good Ghost-King74 was at shooting, but when he eyed the weapon in Hades’ hand while still running, he could see that it was a pretty slow shotgun that he personally never used. He liked fast weapons with which he could take enemies down without them realizing they were being shot. Sure, he needed more shots to kill, but that was fine since his aim was usually good. It never took too long before he downed someone.

His teammate then caught his attention crouching down on the ground and signaling an enemy presence right in front of them, towards a conglomerate of rocky hills with a couple constructions on them. Some old and consumed stairs led to the top of the highest hill, where he could see some movement.

They were still relatively distant, though.

He let the other know that he received the message before running up towards the hill; at least he was in charge this time.

He started climbing the hill through the stairs, keeping an eye and an ear out for any movement and feeling his heartbeat grow louder with every step.

When he found himself on top of the hill, one of the enemies he had managed to spot from afar jumped right in front of him from inside one of the houses, promptly firing at him with their rifle-gun. He quickly took cover, activating Hermes’ fast-running ability and hiding behind the house, holding back a curse.

Rapidly scanning his surroundings, he noticed that he couldn’t see anyone else. That was not good since that meant enemies were hiding and were probably scattered around the place, just waiting for him to engage with their other teammate to down him together.

“Fuck”, He whispered to himself, only later realizing that his teammate had probably heard him too. Percy hoped that he hadn’t seemed too panicked. Because he was.

He turned the corner behind which he was still hiding, and decided that he was going to try; at least he could weaken them and hope that King-something was experienced enough to know what to do.

Fast forward a couple seconds later, and he instantly regretted his decision.

The same asshole from before started hitting him from behind, and he quickly moved to his right while turning his camera around, aiming and firing while he kept on walking around the other. Then, he saw a series of shots coming from behind his enemy, making their Ares character fall to the ground and allowing him to relax a bit.

He saw Hades appear behind the same wall he had used to take cover a few moments before. After observing them looking around, Percy watched as they took off running towards another, bigger building down the hills that looked like an ancient and open temple.

Percy took that as an occasion to patch himself up and recharge before heading headfirst towards the melody of the open fire.

Sliding down the hill and aiming at the buildings not far from him, trying to locate at least one enemy, his eyes caught the sight of Hades crouched behind the skeleton of a couple marble columns beside the stairs alongside the hill.

Percy frowned, but he let Ghost-guy do their thing. Maybe they were also wounded and needed to heal themselves first.

But he didn’t want to wait. He turned his view to the few houses in front of him, the shots traveling from the windows to the floor.

There were probably at least two teams battling each other, he thought. He hid behind the wall of the first house he found, eyeing the direction of the shots.

He saw what seemed like an Artemis character shooting with a sniper gun from a window, being hit from time to time by someone he couldn’t really detect. When Artemis rose again from her crouched position behind the window, he fired away. Whoever that Artemis was, they had already gathered quite a bit of damage, because Percy was able to hit and kill them in a few seconds. He fled the scene soon after, getting closer to the sound of guns firing in front of him.

Slowly but surely, he turned the corner to see four people in total shooting at each other, probably two of each team.

He had turned the corner maybe a bit too confidently, since as soon as he glanced at them from behind a broken wall, one of the four quickly downed one other player to then aim at Percy, firing away before disappearing behind the huge head-piece of a Greek statue.

“Fuck”, Percy muttered between his teeth; he would have really liked to ask where exactly the fuck that Hades guy was.

He retreated behind a corner before speeding (thanks to Hermes’ speed ability) towards the entrance of another building, in hopes he would leave his enemies behind.

He had been hit, and now his health wasn’t that full anymore. He used some nectar to heal himself up before looking outside the window, where the two enemies that had attacked him had now made a clean sweep of everyone else, and one of them was now looting on the other players’ death boxes. The other (a Zeus guy, it looked like) was nowhere to be seen.

Percy took that as a sign that he was searching for him, and that would have probably taken a bit of time. So, he aimed and fired at their teammate; they too were probably not in very good health, since he was able to down them in a few seconds after just a couple shots.

Percy recharged his weapon, waiting for the Zeus guy. He quickly glanced around him, heart beating fast in his chest.

Eyeing Hades’ banner, he saw that he still had full health points, but he was still nowhere to be seen. On the map, he seemed to be close, but Percy couldn’t hear anything that would suggest that he was taking action.

Then, a shooting sound came to his ears, too close for comfort.

“The heck?”, He said, probably too loud to pretend he wasn’t startled.

He was being shot from behind, and he used Hermes’ ability again to flee the scene, positioning himself beside the guy. While running, he could see that it was indeed that same Zeus character. His enemy had stopped for a second, though, and was now firing at something else close to him.

Percy frowned and turned towards his enemy, who was now just surrounded by some skeletons that were attacking him and blocking his view. A second after, he saw shots being fired, and, just like that, Zeus fell to the ground, dead.

Percy rose his gaze to look at the direction of the shots, and saw Hades coming down from a huge rock near the houses, recharging his shotgun.

He would have liked to thank him or whatever, but he was suddenly interrupted by a warning that made him aware that enemies were coming behind him.

He still needed to patch himself up, but he didn’t care. Now that Ghost-guy was here, it should have been easier.

He turned towards the point his teammate had pinged on the map, noticing another squad coming straight towards the small square in between the houses.

Percy ran again, Hermes’ ability still not available after having used it a few moments before, and crouched behind the fountain in the center of the square before aiming and firing at one of them.

They were in good health, so he only managed to hit them three or four times before they were firing back and scattering around the place.

That was not good, Percy thought; he and Hades were two, their enemies were three, and now he had lost sight of two of them.

Another couple shots and he would have fallen in battle, so he needed to be careful.

He was still crouching behind the fountain, so he started to run hoping that somehow that would have left them behind. Unfortunately, as soon as he tried to flee the scene, a shot hit him from the side. He quickly turned towards the other Hermes character he had already wounded before, mentally cursing at himself for not taking his time to at least recharge his armor.

He fired away, managing to hit him with quite a bunch of bullets before falling to the ground, not dead but bleeding out.

“Oh, come on!”, Percy exclaimed, quieter this time, letting his hands and his controller fall into his lap.

With wonder, he saw that the other Hermes guy was now also on the ground, probably bleeding out too. They seemed to have fallen at the same time, he thought, finding that a bit amusing and slightly less humiliating.

Eyeing the Hades’ guy banner, he again noticed that he was almost in full health.

He looked around with his virtual eyes, trying to either spot his teammate or the other two enemies left. Glancing at the small banner on the upper right side of the screen, he found out that they were now competing for the first and second place; there were only two squads left, including them.

A rush of adrenaline washed through him as he tried to focus even more on scanning the environment for danger.

As soon as he looked at the Hermes guy in front of him, he saw that one of their teammates (an Athena character) was approaching them to help.

Percy started to annoyingly ping them to the Hades guy, because he really didn’t want them back in full health when they were still just two (well, now one). They still had a chance to win, depending on the shooting skills of Ghost-King guy there. So, he waited.

A few seconds later, he again saw skeletons appearing around the Athena character. Differently from the Zeus guy, she didn’t uselessly fire at the distraction.

Instead, they started looking around, evidently understanding the trick. That didn’t work, though, because as soon as they turned around, there was a powerful hissing sound, and a straight, thin string of blue light hit them, making them lose probably quite a bit of health points.

That was a sniper gun, Percy recognized. And a pretty powerful one, too.

Athena and Hades started firing at each other, while Percy was moving his by now useless character closer to the scene to gain a better view.

He saw the Hades guy delivering shots from a window on the first floor of a house, and he was hitting Athena with every one of them. He sometimes crouched, reloaded, and fired again, even when their enemy tried to flee the scene.

And, just like that, she was down too, a death box emerging from the character.

Percy just stared with huge eyes, frustration burning inside of him because of how useless he felt. He would have liked for Hades to heal him, but he knew that would have not been convenient.

The last player from the enemy squad was still there somewhere, and his teammate probably knew.

He tried to look around again, desperately trying to spot them somewhere. He finally saw the other player running towards the building in which Hades was.

He rushed to signal them in hopes he would have given Ghost-guy the advantage to know he was being tracked down.

“Coming towards you”, Percy warned, still a bit under his breath.

Ghost-King guy quickly reacted to his ping, letting him know that he had heard.

Then, just like that, he disappeared from the window. Now, Percy couldn’t see either one of them, but he did notice that last enemy (an Apollo guy, if he was not wrong) entering the building. Percy knew Apollo was not exactly good at close fights, too. He knew that they still had a chance.

Just as he was thinking that he heard one, then two guns firing, even though he couldn’t see anything yet. He heard the Hades’ character default warning that he was getting shot at, and he briefly glanced at Hades’ banner. He still had full health, but his shields were down.

Soon after, other shots were fired, and this time he recognized the sound of the Hades’ guy shotgun.

A few moments later, a “You Are The Champion!” gold-and-black banner appeared all over his screen.

Percy grinned widely, still not managing to believe that, still being at a disadvantage from the very start, they had somehow managed to win the match.

“Fuck yes, man!” He exclaimed, now genuinely hoping Ghost-King74 could hear him.

He let his controller fall on his lap one more time, before staring at their characters appearing on the screen, standing on a marble podium on a grassy hill, the blue sky spreading behind them.

Percy absolutely loved that feeling.

He was still stupidly smiling too much; he knew he shouldn’t have doubted the ability of someone elite player.

That’s why they were hiding before, he thought. Hades’ ability was made for ambushes and snipers, not for close combat. Of course, they knew better than to just walk with him into battle.

They were still probably a bit of a loner, but Percy admired that.

Eyeing the banner and badges on Ghost-King74’s character card he found that, even having his same killing count, he had gathered a great deal of inflicted damage, their badges signaling his many wins throughout the game’s seasons. His Hades character stood tall inside the banner, some black fog and dry, thorny branches of the same color circling around it with animated skulls hanging from the twigs as some really dark buds.

That was a cool presentation, Percy thought. Maybe too dark and gothic for him, but he appreciated the aesthetics. He could see them playing again sometime, he thought.

So, without thinking twice, he pressed on the button on his controller to send the guy a friend request.

He didn’t have anything to lose anyway, and he liked to think that he reserved the privilege of being his friend to just a few people. Also, he thought that the guy was okay as a teammate; maybe still a bit snobby, but they could work on that. Percy still needed to learn how to not get himself killed, after all.

Interested, he looked at the guy’s profile after sending the request. The language was American English, which could mean that they were indeed in the USA, or it could mean that they were somewhere else and just had the language set to English; so that really didn’t tell him anything apart from the fact that they understood when he talked.

Their profile picture was a grim reaper, which didn’t surprise Percy a bit. Their profile banner, on the other hand, was what he recognized as the cover of some _Assassin’s Creed_ game.

Not bad, he thought. He had played one or two games of the _Assassin’s Creed_ series, probably _Black Flag_ or something, at one of his friend’s house a couple years prior, and the storyline had seemed cool. He kept on forgetting to download it when he had time.

Looking at the other games the guy had played, he found a mix of some pretty dark stuff: from _Until Dawn_ to _Silent Hill_ to _Resident Evil_ , it was all there. _Doom_ and _Dead Space_ were there too, obviously, and Percy couldn’t help but smirk when imaging how the person behind that screen could look like.

Probably black hair with an emo haircut, that’s for sure. He could bet ten bucks on the possibility that it was a guy, though; given the name and the curious taste in games.

The only pretty light stuff Percy managed to find was a couple _Final Fantasy_ games and some sci-fi stuff like _Detroit._

Their taste wasn’t too bad, Percy thought, still scrolling through the relatively long list of titles. Definitely not stuff that he would play continuously, but it all seemed pretty badass.

He was now assuming the guy was a dude, but he wasn’t completely against the possibility of them being female. That would have been even more awesome.

His ears picked up the sound of bags dropping on the floor, along with some voices in the kitchen. His mom was probably home, he thought; that meant he had to help her with the groceries.

So, he closed his account, logged out, and closed the tab before getting up from his chair, taking off his new headset and heading towards the kitchen.

Like every evening, he helped his mom with the dish-washing after dinner since his stepfather already did half of the work prepping dinner. He then thanked him properly for the headset, promising he would do more in the house from that moment on; Paul just answered him with a “think about graduating first” bullshit, which Percy disliked very much.

What was wrong with wanting to work and drop out of that hell on earth, he couldn’t tell.

He wasn’t going to college anyway, and he had asked his mom to keep the money she saved for that purpose for her and possible future unforeseen circumstances. Those savings could cover everything they needed while Percy would be somewhere else, in his own apartment rented with his own money, and without a high school diploma.

It was not like anybody cared if you studied or not; you just had to find something to do, and do it well. And he could do that. He was responsible. He just really hated school and tests and, especially, reading.

Before entering yet another discussion with his parents, they basically just forced him to swear that he would do better in school because they cared about him and his education, and all that. So, he promised.

And, of course, he regretted his decision the day after.

He had so many unfinished projects and homework to hand in before the end of the week that he would have liked to just throw everything out the window and burn his books in that homeless man’s container down the street. He tried, hard, to do what would have granted him at least a D. Then, there were the clubs and the fact that he wasn’t literally doing anything for his history course, which bothered him considering he had completely neglected his favorite subject so far.

The swimming practice was okay, as he had never missed one class and didn’t intend to do so. That at least could give him some credits without him being stellar in everything else.

As he stared at the pile of books on his desk, he eyed his computer right in front of him.

This was going to be hell, he thought to himself before opening his math book.

Days went on like this; him ending his school day, walking home, and studying.

He had prayed Annabeth to come to his place more than a couple times, and it had helped.

She and her professional attitude made it feel like he was actually getting somewhere, but there were still times when he would try to distract her into doing something else. And that meant literally anything else.

And yes, sometimes they did end up in bed; but just sometimes, and just because Annabeth had promised him sex as a prize for him putting some effort into what he was doing.

And, also, they didn’t get to spend that much time together anymore: Percy was either always studying or gaming, while she was all busy with choosing her future college, working and keeping her grades as high as possible.

So, those few moments of fun together were indeed a great incentive for Percy to work hard on his school career.

“You’re not bad at studying, Percy, it’s just…” She said one day, as soon as she had explained to him something about acids for his chemistry course. “It’s just that it takes longer for you to get it. It’s not that big of a deal, and you’re definitely not stupid.”

Percy wanted to believe her. But from the words she used, he could tell that he was slow. That was the point of the whole argument. And he knew he was; he had always been since he was in elementary school. He could blame it on his attention problems, or on his dyslexia; but the result was always the same.

So, it was becoming increasingly harder for him to motivate himself to do well in something he already knew for a fact he wasn’t good at.

Weeks flew by, and he and Annabeth had finally managed to arrange an afternoon in which she could visit him right after work and sleep at his place.

While they were eating at a cheap food place near his house, he knew they could finally talk about something else other than his studies.

She had finally chosen which colleges she wanted to apply to and, to Percy’s unpleasant surprise, half of them were European universities. That was because, according to her, she had made enough money to travel to the UK, to Italy, or the Netherlands, and not worry too much about finding a job right away to support herself. So, she was seriously thinking about going.

“Percy, I’ll be back for Christmas and other occasions. You know I will,” She reassured him, still eating her burger and drinking her milkshake. “It’s just a great opportunity for me, and you know that it’s my dream to travel to Europe and to Africa. If you want to, we’ll make it work.”

She looked at him in the eyes, smiling sweetly. Her eyes were sparkling just talking about that.

“I don’t want to lose you because of this,” She said, placing a hand on one of Percy’s and caressing it softly.

He would have been genuinely happy for her if one of those universities would have accepted her (which, let’s face it, was more than probable). But, he would have also been deeply saddened to know that his favorite person in his life could just be gone, miles and miles away from him from one day to another.

His chest tightened when he thought about him saying goodbye to her at the airport, knowing he wouldn’t see her for months. Crying wasn’t something he was used to doing, but he knew himself well enough to know that he wasn’t able to hold back tears when it came to Annabeth.

He had only barely held himself together when she first looked at him in the eye one night to tell him those three words.

But, still, since he loved her that much, he was reluctant to try to keep her there. Also, he knew he had no power over her decision-making process, in that case,

“Yeah, I mean, we can make it work… There’s Skype and stuff, right? You’ll tell me when I can call and I’ll be there every time” He said, probably too quickly, and honestly feeling a bit disappointed by his own words.

It felt like he was letting her get away, and he didn’t want that. He wasn’t okay with the whole thing. But, she didn’t seem to mind that much.

“Exactly!” She exclaimed, her voice discrete since there were people around. “Don’t worry about it. You won’t even notice I’m gone if you’ll keep yourself busy. I’ll be here again for winter break and I’ll spend half of my holidays with you and half with my family.”

She squeezed his hand tight, looking at him with a determined, loving look in her eyes.

It completely downed on him, then: that he didn’t have any power to change her mind, knowing just how stubborn she could be when it came to following her aspirations. It was a good thing, though, really. It was just him that felt left behind every time.

“I could follow you at your dad’s house and be there for the two whole halves, you know” He tried to joke, resignation slowly creeping up inside him.

“Very funny” She teased, giving him a small smile.

When they got home an hour later, they got ready for bed after watching a couple of movies in Percy’s living room.

His mom and his step-dad were out for dinner too, kindly leaving the house to them for their privacy; but all they ended up doing was getting angry at people in shitty horror movies, Annabeth personally getting annoyed by all the medically-inaccurate deaths of the characters, while Percy just laughed along for all the stupid shit thrown here and there just to make the plot going.

When she told him she was getting tired, Percy begged her to wait for him to finish just a couple gaming matches before sleeping.

She agreed, rolling her gray eyes at him, and spent her time reading some small book with a colorful cover in Percy’s bed while he played without his headset on. She seemed to not even notice the difference, but Percy knew she appreciated him being present and not isolating himself into the virtual world. And Percy had no intention to: one of the best feelings was simply having her there in his room; both of them doing their thing, but still doing it together.

With still their conversation in mind and the volume of the game close to zero, he couldn’t really pay much attention to the match at all. Despite that, he had managed to find himself near the end of the match with still a full three-person team.

There were three squads left apart from them, but the chances of them being all complete teams were minimal. He and his squad were fighting against a team of two, and Percy had just knocked down an Athena character; he was now recharging his shields and health points while he waited for his two teammates to finish the one guy left of the enemy’s squad.

Looking around him on the green hill he was on he could see that, not too far from them, the other two teams still left were now fighting against each other.

That was extremely convenient, Percy thought, as he pinged their location on the map for his other teammates to see. One of the two was going to get eliminated, and they could surprise the winning team at their weakest right after the fight.

It was almost too easy, but he liked simple stuff.

So, as he finished recharging, Percy started running towards the other squad’s location on another high hill with an ancient, towering temple on its top, stairs going up positioned at the base of the small mount. He made sure his teammates knew where he was going before he was crouching down, looking at the direction of the bullets that were still firing.

He stayed there for a few seconds until the shots ceased. Eyeing the banners of his teammates, he noticed that they were both still alive and well; which meant he could go on with his plan.

He moved his Hermes character towards the point where he last saw bullets being fired and, sure enough, he instantly detected some movement right inside the temple.

Two enemies were still in there, looting the death boxes of the squad they had just downed. He fired away from behind a column, hitting one of them until their character fell to the floor.

That had been pure luck; he knew. He couldn’t expect the other to be that low on health points too.

So, using Hermes’ speed ability, he moved behind another column, signaling the enemy to his teammates again to warn them, just in case.

He recharged his weapon before firing again, but he was met with the figure of another Hermes character. The guy just disappeared and reappeared again near him, firing and hitting him.

“Fuck you, dude, that’s not fair” He cursed in a whisper, trying not to bother Annabeth too much.

He hid behind another column, trying to aim at the guy again, only to find out that he was now on the opposite side of the temple Percy thought he would be, and was trying to hit him again.

Soon after, he heard shots being fired behind him, and he took the chance to aim and shoot. A moment later, the enemy was down thanks to one of his teammates.

He muttered a quiet ‘yes’, expecting the victory banner to appear at any moment. When it didn’t, he frowned, a bit taken aback. So, that meant someone else was there.

The last guy from that squad was still alive and well. Not for long, Percy thought, as he eyed the entrance of the temple for a quick check on his squad member.

Just like that, his ears picked up the sound of shots being fired somewhere near them. His teammate turned towards the entrance of the temple after finishing the first enemy that Percy had downed a minute before.

His mate’s Ares’ character then ran towards the entrance, not yet escaping the building. It wouldn’t have been smart, Percy thought, since that last enemy was probably going to be there soon anyway; which, whoever that was, had just downed their other teammate. And they did it fast.

That meant that they weren’t fucking with some newbie.

Percy took his time to recharge his armor and shields before he glanced at the Ares’ character heading outside. He rolled his eyes at that, but he let the guy do what he needed to do. His defense points were high enough, he thought. He could supposedly handle an attack.

At first, he didn’t hear anything. But, after a few moments, he heard hissing, high-speed bullets being fired.

A sniper gun, he recognized. No wonder why their teammate had gone so fast.

He pondered for a second or two on what to do. It would have been easier for the two of them to take the enemy down if just one of them would have just sort of taken the bullets, while the other entered the building the sniper was firing from.

So, Percy headed out, determined to go along with his own plan.

When he did, though, he found that the Ares’ character was now gone. His teammate was still alive, it showed on their banner.

Then, just when Percy was eyeing the map on the right side of the screen, things quickly started to happen: his teammate pinged a location not that far from him, a small window in a tall house down the hill. As soon as Percy turned towards it, though, he found he was being shot at.

“Son of a bitch –“ He cursed as he ran as far away as possible, but still closer to the building he knew the enemy was firing from.

He tried avoiding the bullets, but that was becoming increasingly difficult to do when he didn’t have his super-speed anymore since he had already used it recently. The bar wasn’t recharged yet.

He noticed that his teammate was following him, firing towards the window while running. He had no idea if he was hitting his target, but everything he knew was that he was about to get killed, and he didn’t have time to neither think nor to reach the building. So, he decided on the right thing to do.

Still intermittently taking the bullets, he positioned himself in front of his teammate and began to shoot. Another bullet, and he was down. He rose his knock-down shield in front of himself to protect his teammate from the bullets that were now directed at them. He couldn’t see behind him, but he knew that his mate was probably crouched behind him, having taken the hint to use his Hermes character to protect himself.

After that, Percy had no idea what happened. He just knew that, after one last bullet, his teammate fell beside him on the ground, knocked down and bleeding out.

Then, just like that, the other squad was being declared champions of the match.

“ _What_?!” Percy exclaimed, staring at the screen in complete disbelief.

As the nicknames of the players on the enemy squad invaded his screen, and he had the time to read them squinting his eyes, his face assumed an even more shocked expression, because there was this Hades character on the right side that got his attention. He recognized that character’s skin: smoke coming out of his feet and a black, long cape held in place by a silver medal of some sort hanging on his shoulders.

As he read the name above Hades’ head, he stared: Ghost_King74.

“You asshole…” Percy muttered in disbelief, as his mind connected that nickname to something familiar.

He didn’t even think about the fact that he had sent them a friend request that they had never accepted anymore. But now it was all coming back, and Percy was just genuinely frustrated. Most of all, irritated.

He would not accept being beaten by some snooty bastard like that. Never mind the fact that that jerk alone had just downed a full squad in good health in five minutes.

He was really wishing for some kind of re-match so that he could lower that emo asshole’s self-esteem a bit. Just a bit.

Leaving the controller in front of his screen, he was now determined to play the last match of the evening at the best of his abilities before calling it a night.

When he tried to, though, losing again since he was still too angry to properly think about strategies and plans of action, he reluctantly returned to the game’s title screen. There was no point in trying in his condition; it would have been better to just sleep and forget about it. Possibly forever.

But, just when he was hoping not to see that fucking name again, a notification popped up on the side of his screen: an invitation to a match.

He squinted his eyes to read the name. A confused, frowned expression formed on his face when he read the name of Ghost_King74 on his computer.

“What the fuck…” Percy whispered slowly, re-reading that name again, just to be sure.

That didn’t make sense at all, he thought. Emo guy had never accepted his friend request, no doubt about that.

Could it be that they had just accepted it? Did the jerk recognize him during the game? No, that couldn’t be possible.

Unless it was, Percy realized while laying back on his comfortable chair. The names of the people you eliminated and all the other players’ actions in the game were always there on the right side of the screen during a game.

It could also be that the guy had just forgotten to accept the request, and they had remembered it just now. So, there was a possibility of them not being a jerk; which was quite a nicer possibility, he thought.

Percy took the controller in his hands once again, playing with the stickers on its back while pondering on what to do.

On the one hand, he would have liked to accept the offer. It would have been better than playing against the guy, for sure.

But, on the other hand, he didn’t want to give in just yet. He wasn’t that desperate to jump onto the guy’s first request, and he wanted to firmly believe so.

So, Percy told himself, he would allow just one match. Just one, and then he would disappear for a few days. That seemed like the right, in-the-middle thing to do.

Pressing the ‘X’ button on his controller, he accepted the request after noticing Annabeth already sleeping soundly in his bed, her blonde, bright hair still tied up in a messy bun. There was no point in going to bed now, anyway.

He was playing just to learn some more and gather more kills, to feel like he was doing well in at least _something_ in his life. So, he bet he could always use Ghost guy for his own gain, he reasoned with a pleased smirk. There was no doubt about that.

It’s not like he was letting the guy get away with stealing his prize, Percy thought, as he stared at his screen, waiting for their first match to start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally back after uni basically killed my whole mind, body and soul.  
> nothing much to say apart from the fact that I spent so long editing this chapter that I started hating it more and more BUT I know that's just my mind being a bitch.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy!!

Percy did not regret his decision to accept the emo guy’s invitation. They had played at least three matches together (much to Percy’s disappointment with himself) because it was just so cool knowing that someone always had your back. When Percy would end up losing sight of Ghost guy for a bit, he would automatically assume he had spotted someone else before him, and he would just dive in headfirst, waiting for the other to come and help. One of those three matches they had won yet again, their whole squad alive and well. That left Percy full of pride as he went to bed and even as he woke up the morning after.

Despite that, the frustrating thing was that he could not communicate with him.

He tried to, sometimes. Like when he asked Ghost_King74 to “ping a map point in red if they were a guy and in blue if they were a girl”, and he did ping in red, which was cool enough for him, he had suspected it anyway.

The positive side was that he was at least listening to what Percy was saying: most of the time, his teammate would act by himself, but sometimes, Percy noticed that Ghost guy would consider his advice. Not that Percy could concentrate on communicating that much; he was always on the lookout just because he still felt like he needed to prove himself to the other. He still had a sort of inferiority complex going on, so he tried to be as professional as possible and pay attention to whatever was going on around him, reflexes ready to shoot, and, most of all, run when it was necessary.

Ghost guy did what was possible to help him with that but, most of the time, they were both doing their own thing until one of them would spot danger. Then, they would reunite again, signal their location to the other, and wait for the enemy to show themself and attack.

Days passed in which Percy managed to find some time to play at least one match in the evening, or at night, which wasn’t too good for his sleep patterns. His mom had caught him a couple of times already where he had to beg her to have at least those half-hours to have fun because his head was definitely about to explode with all those math and science notions and history facts that he couldn’t care less about.

His dyslexia was also apparently getting worse, but that may have been because he had avoided reading for a long time like Annabeth had suggested. His ADD wasn’t getting better either, and he wondered if that could have been because of the video games like his mom would lament every time.

Although she knew that those games were most definitely not contributing to bettering his issues, making him overly distracted and hyperactive even for his own standards, she still chose to stay out of it for the most part. Of course, she would have liked for him to stop playing for his own sake, but she wasn’t forcing it on him. She was also reluctant to talk about it with Paul, which Percy also appreciated. She was one of the best moms in the world, he knew that.

But despite it all, this time was different. It wasn’t just that he wanted to escape reality for a while; Percy had an actual objective in mind: leveling up in NuOlympus.

And while doing so, he also had the pleasure to get to know his teammate more. That became one of the reasons for gaming: he actually had someone to interact with, which for a person like him was wonderful, to say the least.

So, he started trying to talk with Ghost guy more. Playing with nothing else to think about or do was becoming boring and, actually, he found verbal explanations way more effective than pinging random points on a map in hopes that your teammate got the message.

Because of that, Percy had been sincerely and pleasantly surprised when, one time, he had found Ghost guy with his mic on.

He couldn’t hear anything from the other end, and he didn’t comment about it. It would have been weird to notice and point it out, also because he wasn’t supposed to want to talk to him that bad. Also, he didn’t want to scare him off.

He wanted them to be friends, not just teammates.

He waited for their characters to land on the map, the third teammate apart from the two, being a Hephaestus with a pretty decent rank. They were still distant from the other players, but it was not a bad thing.

They found themselves beside some houses along a river and immediately started looting for items.

Percy was actually paying more attention to his microphone, and was curious about what would have happened if he were to start talking directly to Ghost guy. The other _did_ look like the kind who wouldn’t even bother to answer.

So, Percy was waiting for his chance.

He would have found a way, asking questions or making him laugh. The curiosity was just too much for him at that point.

Also, he liked challenges. Usually easy ones, but either way.

They kept walking for a while, not crossing paths with anyone. Percy was still waiting for something to happen when he heard the sound of firearms coming from their right.

As they turned around in the middle of a dry-grass area, Percy saw at least a couple teams battling each other near some shacks.

That was the occasion he was waiting for. He didn’t think about it twice; he ran towards the open fire, a slight smirk on his face. It was fun, after all.

It seemed to him like Ghost_King74 had just sighed into his microphone, and that distracted him for a second, but that wasn't useful information for him. He had to catch the chance to ask him his Discord nick or something, which was what he liked to do with anyone he respected and also sort of admired.

Also, weren’t they considering themselves regular teammates by now?

Percy hid in one of the wooden shacks before peeking just a bit outside the window to get a glimpse of where their enemies were.

Four shotguns were firing at each other directly in front of him, two from one side, and two from the other. He was thinking about waiting for one of the squads to kill the other so that he could go and take down whoever was still left.

So, he signaled the enemies to his teammates and waited. He saw Hades pinging a location near him, warning him that he was getting closer. Well, Percy thought: I still need to gather kills and damage. There was no use in waiting if his squad were all there, and they were still three.

His impatience got the best of him, and it didn’t take long before he was running directly towards the danger, trying to take the enemy squad on the left from behind. He signaled his movements to his teammates and started shooting a guy from the enemy’s team, when they couldn’t do anything since they were already taking fire from the other side. Downing them was quick enough; he started firing at a second guy right away, who was now turning to their left to escape.

Percy tried following them, but was suddenly distracted from the sound of shots coming from behind and directed towards him.

It was probably the other enemy squad, he thought. Percy saw his other teammate’s banner light up, warning him that they were taking fire.

So, he stopped, not wanting to leave the site and go help the other guy. He quickly pinged the direction of his enemy to warn Ghost guy before taking off running towards the Hephaestus guy. He signaled he was moving towards them, before speaking into the microphone.

“Try taking down the other, he’s running,” he suggested with a firm tone.

As he had expected, no answer came.

A default “Got it” from the Hades character was everything he got as a reply.

He had to try harder, then. But he was sort of self-conscious about trying to talk to him with someone else listening.

When he arrived on the roof of one of the shacks, he could see his other teammate battling one of the enemies from another rooftop, hiding behind a chimney. He tried following the other’s line of sight to try and see where the other enemy was, but he was soon getting shot by a sniper gun.

He quickly jumped down the roof to avoid taking even more damage before running directly towards the source of the bullets.

“Fucking hate snipers,” he murmured to himself, before realizing he had evidently talked inside his mic loud enough for the others to hear because he could distinctively hear a slight, low chuckle from Ghost guy’s microphone.

Right, Percy thought, cursing at his own unfiltered and inappropriate comments.

Ghost guy liked playing the marksman, so that might have been probably hypocritical of Percy since he too benefitted from his teammate being a fantastic shooter.

But it was true, still. Hiding was still cowardice, in Percy’s eyes. Didn’t matter that his aim was way worse from far away than in close combat. That didn’t have to do with his dislike for snipers.

He could see his already half-dead Hephaestus teammate on the side of his screen, and he was seriously contemplating not reviving him just to have the chance he could be alone with Ghost guy. He could at least try to push some information out of his mouth.

Percy didn’t even know his name, for God’s sake. Was he supposed to call him Ghost guy in his mind forever?

Percy kept on scanning the environment for some sign of the sniper being close and, as soon as he thought that, he spotted an enemy escaping a small building right in front of him.

They were probably on the roof, Percy thought as he aimed and shot. They engaged in close combat for a few seconds before his almost-dead Hermes character had to run and retreat.

He let out a frustrated snort before he went hiding somewhere using Hermes’ speed to escape.

As soon as he placed himself behind a wall and started to recharge his health points, he heard a distinct “Motherfucker” coming from Ghost guy’s microphone.

That alerted Percy again, now that he could hear shots firing relatively close to him. But at least, now he had listened to his teammates’ voice.

He couldn’t be more than eighteen years old, Percy thought. That was definitely the voice of a boy, but not that of a man. He would have guessed sixteen at best. That was great, Percy thought. Someone presumably his own age, more or less.

There was this part of him that would have still preferred a girl, just because that would have been a whole new level of interesting. But, a guy was okay too. If the other was really younger than him, that could have provided him with a bit more confidence in what he was doing, solely for maturity reasons. At least, he assumed to be more mature than a sixteen-year-old.

As he recharged almost all his shields, he could already see that Hades had downed their enemy with ease and was just now coming towards him and, presumably, their other teammate. But, when eyeing their banner, Percy noticed that it had disappeared.

It could have been problems with the network, he reflected, or they could have just left for whatever reason.

That was convenient, Percy thought. Now he could really talk about whatever.

Percy thought about how to approach the situation before talking through his mic, even though he knew that thinking had a tendency to hinder his social interactions quite a bit.

“You hear me, man?” he asked, making sure to use a relatively loud tone, just to make sure the other knew Percy was talking to him.

There were a few moments of silence before Ghost guy answered him with an “I do”.

Percy reacted quickly, registering the other’s relatively quiet voice form his headphones.

“Uh, sorry, I never introduced myself,” he tried, before adding, “I’m Percy.”

Again, silence for a few seconds.

“’T’s fine. I’m Nico.”

Oh, Percy thought. He had never heard that name before. Italian, maybe? Or Spanish. He could never distinguish the two when hearing people talking. Also, Nico didn’t seem to have a particular accent he could pinpoint for now. He was slightly disappointed by that for some reason.

“Cool. You have like a Discord or something?” Percy tried again, following Ghost guy towards the death boxes of their enemies and taking what items they still needed to be safe.

By that point, Percy was sure there were some connection problems on their line because the other wasn’t replying quickly to anything he was saying.

“Yeah,” he replied briefly.

“Is it, like, the same name you have here?”

This time, the reply was swift.

“Uh,” he seemed to hesitate, “yeah, sort of. It’s all small letters though, with one-three-one-eight after the hash.”

Perfect, Percy thought. He got what he wanted.

He had no idea how Nico could remember his user number that quickly, but he figured it probably was because he spent a decent enough amount of time on Discord.

“Cool, man. Can I write you later?”

Percy heard that dry chuckle again.

“Okay,” Nico said, “I don’t write much, though. Only in the evenings and stuff.”

Percy had expected that too; it had been pretty evident the other was not the social type, all that black and death everywhere.

He made a slightly puckered expression out of habit before replying.

“That’s okay, me too.”

And it was reasonably accurate since he still had to study pretty much every day if he didn’t want to lose his rhythm.

“What’s your Discord?” Nico suddenly asked while they were running towards the center of the ring again.

“Uh, it’s something like ‘fried octopus’,” Percy replied, a bit hesitant but still internally laughing at his own name, “you’ll recognize it.”

“Cool,” Nico snorted.

Percy smiled then as they kept going with the game, occasionally warning the other with stuff like “to your left” or “there’s one behind us”; Percy did that much more than Nico did, though. Despite that, and despite Percy having more than one occasion in which he could have brought back the topic to ask about the other, he stayed silent. There was this light background tension that was telling him to keep quiet and just wait for them to talk later.

They played a couple of games together after that, and Percy did occasionally attempt a sort of conversation. It would usually die off soon, considering the Nico kid’s brief answers.

Despite that, Percy managed to find out his teammate had a kind of sense of humor, considering the times in which he could hear him chuckle at whatever Percy was saying, not even trying to be funny.

He noticed that the more his jokes darkened, though, the more he had a chance to make an impression. Percy added that to the list of Nico guy’s unsurprising characteristics.

There were just a few of these moments, though: the rest of the games in those couple of days were mainly his teammate getting acquainted with Percy’s own gaming style; so much that he seemed to not care that he was basically ordering him around sometimes.

Percy could, of course, fight back, but doing so would make Nico grow a bit stiff and just passively-aggressively reply with a “whatever” or something along the lines of a fifteen-sixteen-year-old.

Consequently, contradicting him at times could also be fun. Nico also seemed to not mind too much.

After those couple of days, Percy finally gathered the confidence to write him first.

He was just taking a break from his history book. Never mind the fact that he had managed to read more or less only one page in half an hour.

He logged in on his Discord from his PC, opening his and Nico’s still empty, gray chat.

He honestly didn’t know how to first approach him. Despite that, he was desperate to have something else to think about apart from that damned school.

So, he actively decided to just go for it. It’s not like they hadn’t talked before, he thought.

Percy started typing since Nico was not yet online. Reading the text left him with a kind of anticipation.

_FriedOct0pus: yo man, I don’t think I’ll be on today. Have to finish stuff for school_

He sent the message, staring at the screen for a bit after sending it, questioning if he should use something else to maybe keep the conversation going. But, Percy didn’t even know if Nico would have been online at all that night. And, staring at their chat was definitely not helping anyone.

So, he sighed and returned to whatever chapter of the book he was still at, making sure to turn on his PC’s notifications.

He kept on glancing at the screen once in a while, just because he was desperate for a distraction. His mom would also come to check on him from time to time, and that was the only thing still keeping him with his nose in between the pages. About another half hour later, he had read more or less just another page, and his eyes were burning from the effort. He felt his brain gradually shut down, along with his alertness, while his eyelids began to close as he lowered his head on the pages.

He had no idea for how long he remained half-asleep like that, but the notification tone from his PC made him jump upright on his seat with huge, startled eyes.

He instinctively lowered his gaze on the book, feeling a wet spot on his cheek. He sighed when he noticed the central part of the page of his book wearing a circular, damp stain. Now we’re back at sleeping on books, he thought to himself, before paying attention to the screen again.

He read the text he just received.

_ghost_king74: it’s cool. I just finished a match._

It was Nico. That made him regain at least part of his alertness.

_FriedOct0pus: Nvm, fell asleep on the book, lol. Ty for waking me up_

Percy wrote on his keyboard, genuinely thanking him because that was certainly better than having his mother wake him up with a smack on the back of his head like he was used to.

A few seconds later, he was trying to wipe his cheek of the remaining saliva, and Nico was typing again.

_ghost_king74: no problem. why do you even try to study, it’s like 12am._

Percy checked the time on his PC then, frowning.

His eyes stared when he realized that it was actually a quarter past twelve.

His mom was probably sleeping by then, he thought. That meant he could have kept on conversing with Nico until he would have been too tired to see the screen, his hyperactive brain suggested. And he listened, like the idiot he could be.

It’s not like he had something else, or better, to do.

_FriedOct0pus: I have to, I promised my mom and stuff. Wasn’t for her I’d already be a dropout lol_

He waited for a reply while swiftly closing his history book and casting it aside, making more space for his keyboard on his desk.

_ghost_king74: right. I have the same with my dad._

Percy had time to slowly react to the message.

So, they were already talking about something, which was great. Percy was finally meeting someone new after days and days of being locked inside his house and school, doing nothing but reading and suffering from headaches.

_FriedOct0pus: Actually which grade are you in?_

He started mindlessly chewing on one of his blue pens.

_ghost_king74: I’m homeschooled, but I’m actually in like 10th grade._

Percy just stared at that last message.

So he was, what, fourteen? Fifteen? He was sort of right, then, when he had guessed his age. Still a bit unexpected, but, in his defense, Nico did sound slightly older when talking.

Also, he knew nothing about homeschooling, except that his dad and his wife were considering the option for Tyson.

_FriedOct0pus: How you like being homeschooled?_

Nico typed for more than half a minute before sending.

_ghost_king74: it would be cool for me if my dad weren’t the teacher. it’s a nightmare whenever he doesn’t see me study._

_ghost_king74: still better than school, though, that’s for sure. so you’re what, junior?_

Percy didn’t know if he should have felt offended by that or not. He decided to let it slide for his own pride’s sake.

_FriedOct0pus: Almost. Senior_

_FriedOct0pus: I’m trying not to fail stuff like history and math, otherwise I’m not gonna graduate in the summer. That’s why my mom is going crazy_

_ghost_king74: oh okay._

_ghost_king74: why does your mom want you to graduate anyway?_

That was a difficult question. Nico should have asked her, not him. Percy had no idea how a parent’s mind worked, “I’m doing it for your own good” and stuff.

_FriedOct0pus: Idk man I don’t get it either. She doesn’t want me to work full time right away just because she wants me to finish my studies first and all that. Says I will regret it later if I don’t_

_ghost_king74: mhh, yea, that probably makes sense_

_FriedOct0pus: Not for me man lol_

_ghost_king74: idk, you never know. maybe she’s right and you don’t want to admit it._

Percy definitely didn’t need to be patronized from a fourteen-year-old.

He opted for a change of topic.

_FriedOct0pus: Maybe_

_FriedOct0pus: What about your dad? Like why does he do it?_

_ghost_king74: he’s just overprotective and constantly controlling me cuz I’m the only thing he has around all day. probably._

_FriedOct0pus: Makes sense. You like studying tho?_

_ghost_king74: kind of. I have to enjoy it otherwise I would spend like 10 hours a day doing something I hate which would not be good_

_ghost_king74: he already promised me I will be the next boss of the family company, so I’m not even studying for college. it doesn’t make sense for him to be so strict_

Percy could bet on anything that it was a funeral business. He could have bet around fifty bucks on it right that second. Or on something related to candles, for some reason.

_FriedOct0pus: What kind of business is it?_

He waited for some moments before he saw Nico typing again.

_ghost_king74: we basically make coffins._

Percy let out a laugh, followed by a “Yes!”, mentally high-fiving himself for being such a genius.

He couldn’t believe this guy being a living stereotype.

_FriedOct0pus: I would have never guessed_

_FriedOct0pus: Really_

_ghost_king74: shut up “fried octopus”_

_ghost_king74: your mom has what, a fishing business?_

Percy actually snickered at that; and knowing how to make jokes was giving the guy free friendship points in Percy’s mind.

_FriedOct0pus: Nah, more like a candy shop_

_ghost_king74: well, makes sense, jelly candies are made with fish._

_FriedOct0pus: I never thought about it like that_

_ghost_king74: you're welcome_

Percy laid back on his chair, still staring at the screen, smirking at Nico’s last comment.

He had no intention of going to bed now. It was still relatively early (it was not), and it was useless trying to keep on studying without relaxing a bit first.

This was the perfect time to get to know a great player better, and he was starting to be curious about quite a bit of information about him.

He always imagined fifteen-year-olds as being these obnoxious teens on Instagram being all edgy and entitled at his school; Nico was a different kind of edgy.

He pulled the keyboard in his lap and started typing again.

_FriedOct0pus: Can I ask like where are you from?_

_ghost_king74: you just did_

_FriedOct0pus: Fair enough, you gonna answer?_

_ghost_king74: NJ_

_ghost_king74: you?_

Percy stared at the screen for a couple seconds before answering, eyebrows rising in surprise.

_FriedOct0pus: No way, I'm in NY_

_FriedOct0pus: You don’t even have an accent man I had no idea_

_ghost_king74: yeah I mean, my family is Italian, so I guess they never caught on the local accent_

_ghost_king74: so, cwoffee?_

Percy laughed again.

He was genuinely hoping his mom couldn't hear him.

_FriedOct0pus: Lol I try not to say it like that but my mom does_

_FriedOct0pus: We’re from Brooklyn, what you expect_

_FriedOct0pus: So, pizzeria?_

_ghost_king74: jeez that’s seriously the best you can do at Italian?_

_FriedOct0pus: I know a couple words my Italian friend taught me once_

_FriedOct0pus: I just know how to pronounce them tho_

_ghost_king74: they're probably slurs or something so don’t even bother_

They were, in fact, slurs. Like _Stronzo_ or something?

But anyway, he kept the conversation going. He was interested in knowing the reason behind Nico’s horror game collection on his profile, which was definitely not Percy's taste. But he couldn’t just let Nico know that he went peeking into his account to read what his favorite games were.

He decided not to seem weird and pretend like that never happened.

_FriedOct0pus: Lol fine_

_FriedOct0pus: What games you play apart from NuO?_

That seemed natural enough.

_ghost_king74: a bunch_

_ghost_king74: Silent Hill is my favorite for now, but it used to be Resident Evil_

_ghost_king74: I mostly like horror games_

_FriedOct0pus: Again I would have never guessed sit_

_FriedOct0pus: istg* sorry computer autocorrect_

_ghost_king74: you have autocorrect on your computer?_

Oh, right, Percy thought. People didn’t usually have that.

_FriedOct0pus: Yeah, that's kinda weird. It's for my dyslexia_

_FriedOct0pus: Without it I would just screw up a bunch of words lol_

_ghost_king74: I get that_

_ghost_king74: guess that's why you fall asleep on books_

Well, the guy guessed sort of right.

It was both a combination of his dyslexia, tiredness from stress, and his attention problems that wouldn’t allow him to actually think about what he was reading. So yeah, that sucked.

But also, he didn’t really want Nico to know; he still had that weird feeling in his guts every time he let people know what his issues were. He felt less than the general population. An underachiever that, independently from the effort he could put in doing stuff correctly, would always fail. And that was not a comforting thought.

He formulated his next message to the best of his abilities, just to try and end that conversation topic as soon as possible.

_FriedOct0pus: Yeah, guess so. Anyway I’m not into horror stuff cause it does nothing to me. I’m more of a call of duty kind of guy_

While he waited for Nico to start typing again, the first time he started seriously playing with his high school mates at Leo’s house came to his mind. He smiled mindlessly, bitterly thinking about the fact that Leo would have surely asked him to hang out that weekend the day after, at school.

Then, Nico replied to his message explaining why, according to him, _Call of Duty_ was overrated as a game, to which Percy responded with some indignant text trying to explain that no, it was instead a perfect example of a well-done, detailed game in its design and mechanics.

Now he was annoyed, but at least he wasn’t thinking about the day after anymore.

They kept on talking about their favorite games, Nico revealing _Final Fantasy_ to be another one of his favorite game series, to which Percy agreed completely. After that, they started complaining about the latest _Final Fantasy_ games, and about the elements of a good game plot, and trash games they both hated.

Percy was grateful to have someone new to talk to about these things; mostly because, well, Nico was pretty opinionated to say the least. He would quickly switch to sarcastic-mode when he didn’t agree with Percy’s statements. That would leave him irritated just enough to be a dickhead and try to frustrate Nico even more, which was fun because they never got to the point where they were both seriously pissed.

It was that sort of back-and-forth conversation in which the first to reply was the first to win.

Needless to say, Nico would win most of the time. But just because Percy was slower when both reading and writing his answer. Despite that, he enjoyed it.

In fact, he enjoyed it so much that, mistakingly glancing at the time stamp beside his last message, he read 2:26 A.M.

His eyes widened, and he hurried when typing his next text.

_FriedOct0pus: Yo man it’s like 2am, wtf_

_FriedOct0pus: Don’t you have to sleep or something?_

Nico took longer to write this time, for some reason. He waited patiently, somewhat hoping for a negative answer.

_ghost_king74: yeah I should. I’ll try at least_

He slightly frowned while adjusting on his chair, covered by a blanket he had put on some time before.

_FriedOct0pus: Wdym?_

Again, he waited for a relatively long time for Nico to start writing again.

_ghost_king74: I just don’t sleep that well these days. it’s nothing though, had it before._

_FriedOct0pus: Sorry man, I have the same sometimes. That sucks_

_ghost_king74: thanks. anyway I’m going now._

Percy ignored the small sinking feeling the last message left him with.

_FriedOct0pus: Alright, speak soon_

Nico didn’t reply to that, but it was okay. It’s not like talking for three hours could make two people extremely close anyway. He didn’t need a goodnight text.

Percy closed his Discord tab, staring at the sea-wallpaper on his desktop.

He was tired, but he didn’t want to sleep.

Sleeping meant passing out, waking up the next day, his alarm going off and his mom yelling at him to get up for the tenth time because, even though she was always patient with him and loved him very much, she was too tired to deal with his lazy ass sometimes.

Thinking about going to school the morning after left him with an even deeper, uncomfortable sinking feeling in his stomach; he grumbled then, annoyed. He laid on the backrest of his chair, staring at the ceiling and thinking about anything else apart from school.

While he yawned, he closed his eyes for a moment, his mind going back to his conversation with Nico while trying to divert the topic of his thoughts to literally anything else.

The guy was cool, Percy thought.

He had always had friends his own age, mainly because he didn’t have that many friends to begin with; he tended not to talk with people that much. He didn’t know if his reluctance in approaching people was due to some hidden shyness, or simply because he considered most people to be pretty dull. He hated to be the only person to not bother to look at his Instagram feed every day and to forget to reply when people texted him.

That would often be the topic of his friends’ jokes. One of his nicknames was Oldie but Goldie for a reason.

But, when calling people on the phone could quickly become a nightmare when he would find himself in an environment with too many potential distractions. It was easier to hold a conversation when the person he was talking to was in front of him, and he could actually see their mouth moving. Or, at least, when they were talking about things that interested him. Like it just happened with Nico.

Percy wondered what the guy looked like. Despite the stereotypical gothic-emo image was still in his mind, he didn’t feel that sure anymore.

It would have been fun if that had been the case, for sure. But the guy didn’t seem particularly angsty or angry at life; he looked like an average, maybe more cultured than average, fifteen-year-old.

They weren’t that different in the end. Also, Percy had no idea why he was still thinking about the guy’s age.

His mind still racing, he didn’t realize how heavy his eyelids were starting to feel. Soon, he gave in to the tiredness, falling asleep right on his chair.

The morning after, his mom scolded him for falling asleep like that, making him basically jump up from his uncomfortable position. His body was apparently angry at him too because his neck hurt like hell whenever he moved it, and his back kept on cracking when he stretched his arms.

At school, he couldn’t help but fall asleep a couple of times during both his Chemistry and Math class, the consequences being one extra presentation on the properties of atoms and a scolding at the end of the lesson. Not that bad as punishments, especially since he knew he still had Annabeth to help with his chemistry homework, that being one of her favorite subjects.

He met up with Leo for lunch since Tyson hadn’t come to school. Obviously, Leo invited him to hang out that Friday. Despite Percy would at least have had something to look forward to for that week of he had said yes, maybe or maybe not motivating him to study more, he had had to listen to his screaming conscience and say no.

He knew what that invite implied: lots of beer, weed, and some heavier booze from someone’s parents’ collection. Percy would start enjoying the night, smoking more than he should, and crash at somebody’s place feeling like shit the morning after and coming back home with the after-effects still powering his brain on slow-motion for the whole day.

“Aw, man,” Leo lamented over the voices of the people at their table. “That seriously sucks. Can’t you stay for, like, an hour? Or a couple, just to get the party going?”

“Dude, I’m telling you, I can’t spend another night wasted and then ignore my homework for the whole weekend,” he explained for the third time, chewing on his apple. “Annabeth and my parents would like, tie me to a chair or something.”

“But can’t you do it for your _muchacho_ here?” Leo begged, joining his hands together in a praying gesture. “He would miss you so much, you know how he is. He’s got abandonment issues and all that...”

“Come on, man, don’t make me feel bad,” Percy replied then, diverting his gaze to the table. “I’m doing what my mom would want me to do for once.”

He felt Leo staring at him for a moment, probably realizing there was nothing he could do to persuade him this time. Then, he leaned back on his chair. “Fine, fine. That’s really a shame, though. Your stuff is definitely my favorite.”

“You could just buy it from the same guy, you know. I can give you the number.”

“Nah man, _papa_ doesn’t have any money lately. And also, I like to smoke it with you,” Leo continued, looking at his half-emptied plate. “You roll so good and always send me to my best trips. No kidding.”

Percy just smiled apologetically. “Sorry man, you’ll have to stick with Jason this time.”

“But he’s cold, bro! Who’s going to hug me when I’m tired and start to forget how to walk?” Leo complained, again placing his arms on the table and laying forward.

Percy laughed then, remembering that night.

Yeah, that had been one of the best stories: Leo seriously panicking because he apparently didn’t remember how to use his own legs anymore. They still teased him for that.

“I’m sure your cute sister will be more than happy to help.”

“She’d start throwing shoes at me instead,” Leo stated then, his eyebrows rising and looking at his food.

“No way, she seems so gentle and kind…” Percy teased, faking the surprise in his tone.

“Oh shut up, man, she’s the fucking devil!” He continued, and Percy listened to him complain about his older sister for the tenth time that week, telling how she started yelling at him for finishing their toilet paper and not warning her.

The times Percy would find himself complaining about being an only child, he would always think about Leo and his two sisters. He didn’t know if being almost too open to conflict had to do with Mexican culture, but Leo didn’t seem to mind. Except when he would go and complain about his family fights with basically everyone he could hook onto the conversation.

He was still one of his best friends, though, so Percy didn’t mind. Leo just knew he had to keep it short if he really wanted Percy to listen; and he did, most of the time.

After lunch, the end of his periods, and swimming practice, he was putting on his clothes in the locker room, dreading the thought of going back home.

It was Thursday, and that meant that the weekend was approaching. So, he could slack off some more before his mom would be back home and force him to study, he thought.

Maybe he could also fit in a couple matches here and there. And, possibly, Nico would be online too, he thought.

Taking his phone from his jeans’ pocket, he opened his Discord app and checked Nico’s online status.

He was offline, of course.

He wondered if Nico had his notifications on while typing his message.

_FriedOct0pus: Yo, I’ve got time for a couple matches in like 20 min. You on?_

After that, he put his phone back into his pocket, grabbed his backpack, and started heading home from the already empty locker room. He was always the last to finish in the showers, and the last to finish dressing up after. He had no idea how he managed that, but something had to be wrong with his scheduling ability if he was consistently late to all appointments.

Already halfway home, he heard his phone chime in his pocket. He took it out, maybe too quickly, reading the notification on his screen.

_ghost_king74: oi, I’m a bit busy with study and stuff today._

_ghost_king74: tomorrow afternoon I’ll have my gaming session tho. what about you?_

Well, Percy thought, he couldn’t go out. That meant he could have the whole evening for himself because Annabeth would come and help him on Saturday, but not on Friday.

He could simply spill his guts all day to then be sure his mom would have had the sympathy to let him play for a bit.

_FriedOct0pus: Is tomorrow evening ok?_

He waited for Nico’s reply staring at the screen, still walking towards his block. He started praying for an affirmative answer, excitement whirling in his stomach.

_ghost_king74: deal. I’ll text you then._

Percy visibly smiled when texting him back enthusiastically.

_FriedOct0pus: Great man, see you tomorrow_

He put the phone back in his pocket, still smirking.

He finally had something to look forward too; it wasn’t much, but he could at least consider that a good day. Never mind the churning feeling in his guts when he thought about having to study more than three chapters, start with the extra presentation, and be relatively finished by that evening because he had promised both Paul and his mom.

He snorted at the thought, trying to focus on anything else but the idea of his parents’ disappointed faces he knew he would face at the dinner table that night.

Time passed so slowly he couldn’t even keep track of how many minutes he spent staring at the pages, trying to take in as much information as possible before he could find himself doing anything else apart from reading. When he expressed his frustration in a text message to Annabeth, she promised that she would have called him as soon as she would have got home from the library.

Luckily she kept her promise, with Percy’s great relief.

The amazing thing about her was that she could basically sense the drops in his attention because she had known him for so long. Studying with her was just that: studying until she would say he could have a break. And, even though Percy would always complain about rules and was still reluctant to listen to authorities, he knew that was exactly what he needed.

They FaceTimed while she was in her room doing her research on her PC, while he studied a decent amount in a couple hours until his mom came back home.

He and his parents had dinner then, and then he went to bed, not before another hour of study session without Annabeth, since he didn’t want to bother her on a Thursday night, knowing how tired she must have been from basically studying all day. He kind of managed while alone, but he found himself playing again without even realizing it.

He cursed at himself the morning after when his mom came bursting in his room, not-so-kindly making him aware that he was at least half an hour late for school and that she was heading out for work.

After kissing her goodbye and not even bothering to think about what to put on, he headed to school and had one of the worst attention-deficit days of his whole life.

His eyes just couldn’t focus on a single thing, it was like everything was spinning and demanding him to please distract himself from whatever people were saying or doing. There was no point in him trying to understand the subject of the lessons anymore when he was thinking about playing with his pen and questioning himself on the nature of blue and black ink.

Which, by the way, he didn’t even remember to google after his Chemistry class.

His friends noticed how he seemed even more volatile than usual, jumping from one topic to another without even bothering connecting them, continually fidgeting with either his hands or his legs and his feet.

While walking home that afternoon, he felt so drained but so goddamn restless at the same time, he swore to himself that he would have never, ever gone to bed after one o’clock in the morning after that. Like he had already promised probably a couple thousand times before.

Sometimes he found himself asking why he even bothered to scold himself if it had the same effect of lecturing a rock.

But, at least, he told himself, he had something to do. It was Friday and, even though his mom would have never allowed him to go out, he had already something to think about.

And that was gaming.

His hands still playing with his pants’ lace, he eyed his computer as soon as he got home. His mom was home early, and she expected him to study.

So, he did. Or, at least, he tried.

After the second hour of staring at everything except the book, drawing all over his desk without even realizing, chewing on his pen enough to taste plastic in his mouth, and ending up just a couple pages forward than where he started, he gave up.

He directed himself into the living room and looked at his mom with probably the most shameful and apologetic expression he could manage.

She looked at him sweetly.

“Let me guess,” she spoke kindly. “Bad day?”

Bad was an understatement, but he didn’t want to be dramatic, so he kept it cool.

“Kind of,” he started, scratching his head and playing a bit with his hair. “I cannot focus, like, at all. I promised a friend I’d be online, though, so I thought…”

“So that’s why you can’t concentrate,” she sighed, getting up from the sofa. “How much did you manage?”

He pondered for a couple seconds before speaking, diverting his gaze to the floor.

“Uh…” he started, his lips pressed together. “A couple pages?”

She crossed her arms in front of him, looking at him with an understanding expression. A sigh escaped from her lips as she combed his hair with one hand.

“Well,” she talked, smiling a bit. “I wouldn’t want you to be a bad friend. Go play if you want, but please go to bed _before_ midnight. Tomorrow’s study day.”

He looked at her then, and a small smile escaped his lips.

“You’re the best,” he thanked her, really meaning it.

He turned around then, thanking her again and basically running to his room.

As soon as he closed his door, he logged onto his computer and his Discord app. When putting on his headphones, he noticed with great joy that his and Nico’s chat had a couple unread messages. He opened as swiftly as he could.

_ghost_king74: I’m on now._

_ghost_king74: I’ll probably already be playing when you log in so just send me an inv when you’re on_

The texts were sent a half-hour before, so he bet he was still in time.

As he waited for the NuOlympus application load screen to disappear, he realized his legs were basically going berserk under his desk, and he felt like a vibrating engine ready to explode. He had all that nervous energy to release, and he was more than ready to go crazy that night.

Nico was online, of course, but he was already in another match. He sent an invitation anyway because he couldn’t care less, and he was dying to do anything else rather than studying or even looking at his books.

He was convinced it would have taken him at least ten minutes to finish the match, and he was already evaluating the possibility to start one himself while he waited.

But, to his surprise, Nico accepted his request almost right away.

Percy smirked, staring at the screen as he started their game.

During the character selection, he almost sighed of relief when he saw that Nico’s microphone was on too, which was a rare opportunity for Percy to try and engage him in a conversation after having been socially isolated for basically all day, excluding lunchtime.

As soon as they began, Percy shamelessly started talking.

“Man, your mic’s on,” he started, merely teasing.

He heard a chuckle from the other side after a few seconds of silence.

“Yeah, thanks for pointing it out,” Nico answered sarcastically. “I’ll make sure to turn it off next time.”

“Don’t be all touchy,” he replied, already taking the lead of their group with his Hermes’ character. “I’ve been socially isolated for the whole day. I need to hear someone else’s voice apart from my mom’s.”

Nico hummed, thoughtful.

“So, you’re asking me to talk?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Percy said, his eyes scanning everywhere on the screen and heading towards a looting spot. “That’s what I said.”

“Let me rephrase,” Nico interrupted then. “You want _me_ to talk?”

Percy let out a small laugh.

“I don’t know, man, it’s not like I can talk to anyone else right now, so…” he argued, perfectly aware of how his voice was probably too expressive and, just maybe, too loud. “Also it’s not like we can talk on the phone, y’know.”

As Percy gathered all the reasonably good fire weapons he could, not even bothering with searching for a decent enough shield or armor, he heard Nico let out a sigh.

“What?” Percy asked, frowning, probably too fast.

“Do I have to explain to you why I’m breathing?” Nico questioned ironically.

Percy could tell that he was either smiling or quietly laughing.

“I don’t know, can you?” He asked back, signaling an enemy squad not too far from them and diving in headfirst towards them.

The adrenaline was already rushing through his veins and his arms.

“Listen, you wanna talk on the phone? Fine,” Nico stated, and Percy saw his Hades character running towards the same enemy squad from far away. “I’ll give you my number if you just let me game without you constantly talking in my ear.”

Percy almost made the mistake of not listening to Nico’s words, because he was just then eyeing an enemy that had just escaped a building and firing at them while keeping on walking towards the high, half-destroyed structure.

Nico had just told him he could give him his number, and that would have been absolutely perfect because he was extremely tired of having to write everything down on their chat. That, and the fact that his dyslexia had the tendency to constantly make him feel stupid. Especially when talking to Nico, for some reason.

It might have been the fact that the younger boy talked like he was a college kid in his mid-twenties already.

“Well, if you _really_ want to, fine,” he teased, downing the first enemy he had contact with. He smirked. “But you’ll have to give me a pass for today. Sorry man.”

Nico was audibly annoyed by that last comment.

“Seriously?” He muttered, his character out of Percy’s line of sight.

Percy just kept himself from laughing before resuming the chase to the other couple of people in the enemy team.

They kept on going, their team reaching the first three places in the match like Percy was used to by now.

It never failed to be exciting for him, though, because that would each time confirm the fact that they were, indeed, pretty skilled at this. Even more when they could communicate, even though Percy had a feeling Nico would have never admitted to that. Not in Percy's face, at least.

Also, it was extra fun, and no one could convince him otherwise; not even Nico's reluctance to even listen to what he was saying.

The game ended with them in third position, which was not something to be ashamed of at all. Despite that, Nico’s happiness and joy was nothing compared to Percy’s, every time it happened. The guy had to be an excessively proud person for getting angry at arriving third out of more than twenty teams.

Percy kept an eye on the clock, somewhat hoping the seconds would slow down, because the thought of the day after was dreading, to say the least. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to the moment in which he would have had to gather his conscience and sense of responsibility, logging out and hoping to fall asleep right away.

So, when the moment came for him to close all tabs and place his controller on the desk, the silence he heard around him was making him restless.

He should have just got up and gone to bed, he told himself with his most authoritarian inner voice.

His eyes staring at his desktop, though, weren't agreeing. The hand on his mouse wasn't, either. On the contrary, he watched as he dragged the pointer on the Discord shortcut on his desktop. The application loaded some moments later, and he went instinctively on his and Nico's chat.

He hesitated again before writing, because what if they would have ended up texting until three in the morning?

He chased the thought off of his mind, remembering that Nico was probably still playing because he didn’t have a shitty, defective brain that didn’t allow him to properly study for a high school degree, and consequently was probably allowed to play whenever he wanted.

Also, he didn’t expect him to be that social and actively engage Percy in a conversation. If Percy were to write in whatever other Discord chat he had open, that same reasoning wouldn’t hold up: Jason would probably sabotage him into play Call of Duty with him; Connor would start talking about shit and memes; and Leo would somehow convince him into staying at the phone for an hour or so. None of these were options that he could think to pursue.

_FriedOct0pus: I'm going to bed man, I promised my mom_

He laid back on his chair, waiting, when he noticed just how much loser-energy his last message emanated.

He wrote again.

_FriedOct0pus: I'd rather stay though, I already know it'll be a shitty night_

Better.

He laid back again, promising himself to not open any other tab just out of boredom and just wait for Nico's answer. He was still hoping he could convince him to do something else instead of sleeping while hoping, at the same time, that he wouldn’t.

He felt stupid, though. Why did he even need someone else telling him what to do?

His mom, Annabeth, Paul. Now he was even resorting to a guy he barely knew that didn’t, reasonably, ask to be put up with his bullshit.

How was he supposed to become a fully functioning adult when he still needed his mother telling him when he had to go to bed?

His overt rebel phase had, luckily, kind of subsided. Now he kept on doing dumb shit, only sabotaging himself internally.

And, of course, the people around him perfectly knew that a significant part of it was his impulse control that was as functioning as his great-uncle’s penis. It was an intermittent signal that would either go berzerk for no particular reason at all, or would completely shut down and, shit, the notification tone on his computer was going off.

He blinked as he read the text, ultimately losing his train of thought.

_ghost_king74: well if you have time I'd like to ask you smth_

His eyebrows went up as he wrote back.

_FriedOct0pus: What's up?_

_ghost_king74: how are you for gems?_

_FriedOct0pus: I got enough. Never used them though. Y?_

_ghost_king74: you have enough to buy a character?_

Percy stopped to think because he honestly didn’t know.

Gems were the most precious thing in the whole game, right after drachmae. Percy almost never spent them on anything just because all of Hermes’ skins were pretty cheap in that sense.

_FriedOct0pus: Idk. Have to check_

_ghost_king74: you ever thought about like, unlocking Poseidon?_

He frowned again.

_FriedOct0pus: Nah man, Hermes is just very convenient to keep, you know. I don’t even remember what Poseidon's ability is_

_ghost_king74: dude he's like the second most powerful after Zeus. He can literally teleport_

_ghost_king74: also he can raise a water wave that protects from damage to put it simply. basically a shelter_

Right, Percy remembered now.

He had seen some Poseidon characters making that shitty move of hiding behind these waves risen from nothing through which you couldn’t see anything. So, they could get away while you had to suck it up and get by.

He didn’t see himself using that technique ever.

He liked action. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would hide for long, even if it meant dying miserably shortly after.

Also, he thought, Nico could be asking that just to have someone to cover his ass.

_FriedOct0pus: Are you trying to convince me?_

_ghost_king74: I mean, yea_

_ghost_king74: also I noticed you do this weird thing where you put yourself in front of people when you're dying. you could solve the problem with that_

Percy stared. Oh, no, he didn’t.

_FriedOct0pus: Only do that when there's asshole snipers trying to steal my first place_

_ghost_king74: asshole sniper did steal the first place though_

Percy snickered.

Nico could be a real dickhead sometimes. That characteristic sat well with Percy, though, considering the people he usually surrounded himself with.

_ghost_king74: trust me man, Poseidon is cool for you_

That might be true, Percy thought, for several reasons.

He found it a bit ironic, Poseidon being a sea god and his dream being a professional surfer and scuba diver.

He really didn’t like the fact that now Nico was telling him what to do, though.

_FriedOct0pus: Man why should I? U need someone to cover your ass?_

He reread the message. That might have sounded a bit harsh.

He should stop writing and sending without thinking, he said to himself for maybe the millionth time in his life.

_FriedOct0pus: I mean if you need someone I'm sure we can find people_

_ghost_king74: no, I just have a plan for a strategy and I need someone more useful than Hermes to put it to practice. also it's useful to know that you wouldn’t die so quickly if you had a character with more defense points_

Nico had him at “strategy”.

_FriedOct0pus: Tell me that strategy and I might consider it_

_ghost_king74: man it's long to write_

_ghost_king74: I'll just show you_

_FriedOct0pus: Nah, I need to know. No Poseidon otherwise_

Percy’s fingers started fidgeting on the keyboard, his mind already tickling that spot in his mind that would activate when people would keep stuff from him.

He was nosy and fully aware of that. Did he do anything to stop himself from being obnoxiously curious at times, though? The answer was no.

_ghost_king74: I told you it's too long_

_FriedOct0pus: Just WhatsApp me then_

_FriedOct0pus: Send a voice note or something. I'm not going to bed until you tell me anyway_

Percy just _knew_ Nico would sigh after reading that.

He wasn’t even a bit sorry about it.

_ghost_king74: you serious?_

_FriedOct0pus: Sometimes I am_

_ghost_king74: you're slightly annoying you know that_

Percy knew. In fact, he bet the smirk on his face while writing his number on the keyboard was probably an even more annoying element.

When he hit send, Nico didn’t reply for a minute or so.

After waiting impatiently on his chair, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

He swiftly took it out with one hand, looking at the green pop-up notification on his screen. After opening his WhatsApp, he could see a new chat had been created on top.

_I'll try to be quick, but if you like short notes then you're not going to enjoy this._

Percy read the message with a smirk still on his face. Now _that_ was an excellent way to end the evening. _I can do with long stuff too. Just do me a favor and split it in stuff of like one minute each_

_Seriously?_

Percy tried not to feel stupid because of that. _Man I have ADHD I literally cannot listen to people for more than 20s_

That wasn’t true, but it was still a convenient and persuasive way to ask because Nico probably had no idea how Percy’s ADHD worked still.

_Right. I forgot._

_Whatever, I'll try._

A moment later, the message beside Nico's profile picture was notifying Percy that he was recording.

He got up from his chair. _Thank you for your understanding, great ghost king_

He left his phone unlocked and threw it on his bed, where it landed with a light _thump_.

For some reason, he felt he had to be excited, Percy thought when turning off his computer. Nico was starting to remind him of Jason; the blonde was all about strategy and reasoning and would always hate how Percy played when they were in the same team.

Percy had fun every single time, though, because he enjoyed annoying serious people. He wanted people to enjoy life, for Christ's sake. Also, he liked pretending to be a piece of shit.

He undressed while walking towards his bed, throwing his jeans and his shirt on the chair. He put on his night t-shirt and laid in bed, still waiting for Nico to send at least the first message.

As he got under his covers and laid back against the wall behind his bed, the message tone of his phone notified him of the voice note, and he instantly pressed play.

To the first words he didn’t pay attention at all, just because he was focusing on the fact that Nico’s voice did sound different than when he talked through his microphone. It probably was because he could hear it more clearly, with no weird sounds in the background and all that; that still managed to make him lose focus for a moment. His voice was sort of high-pitched like a younger boy’s voice should sound, but his tone always seemed so chill and calm: no stumbling on his words like he instead tended to do sometimes, never losing his train of thought, etcetera. He seemed to have put quite a bit of thought into what he was saying, because he was talking with the same tone his History professor used when telling about the War of Independence.

When he finally realized he had listened to basically half of the things Nico had said, Percy got pissed at himself and restarted the audio while Nico was keeping on recording what would have been the next one.

He started fidgeting with his bed covers as he listened, trying to spot some Jersey slang or accent just because he usually had fun doing that with people. To his disappointment, he didn’t manage to detect almost any of that.

This time, though, he managed to actually listen; and found himself intrigued by the whole plan.

He struggled a bit with lost bits of conversation here and there but, towards the third and last voice note, he was convinced.

When he had completed the task of listening to them all, he looked at their chat again.

_You in?_

Percy slightly smiled. _Okay, I’m convinced._

Nico started typing again.

_So you’ll have Poseidon by tomorrow evening, right?_

He still didn’t like the fact that Nico was telling him what to do. _Maybe in 2 days, who knows_

_People ever tell you that you’re really funny?_

Percy snickered, satisfied. _I already know I am_

He eyed the time on his phone. 12:28 A.M.

If earlier he knew that he might have had trouble falling asleep, now that this new, exciting information was swirling in his mind, he simply knew sleep wouldn’t have been his friend that night.

So, he might as well keep on texting for a bit, he told himself.

He heard the still awake and rational part of his brain scold him in the background as he typed the next message. _So, wyd?_

The next morning, Percy woke up to the sound of the doorbell and Annabeth’s voice coming from the kitchen; his phone beside him on the bed, his eyes burning, and his brain begging for some sleep.

Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally hate slow burn I have no idea why I'm writing something like this.
> 
> but, as a side-note, I will now have the time (and will) to update once every two weeks!! isn't that great!(??  
> (no idea if that's great or not it depends if you're liking this or not but anyway) (follow me on [tumblr](https://thenewcancro.tumblr.com/) if you want!) 
> 
> enjoy your vacations if you have any


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I'm late because surprise surprise I haven't had wifi for the whole week and a half I was on vacation. the chapter is still too long anyway BUT I still tried to make it as light as possible. and goddamn I hate dialogues, seriously, but this chapter is too full of them.
> 
> enjoy anyway!

“Try to actually warn me this time,” Nico insisted as they were landing on a faraway point on the map. “And try to actually _trust_ what I say.”

“Man, I swear I had those guys at literal gunpoint,” Percy replied into the microphone, still pissed from Nico standing in his way the match before. “I could have finished them if you had just let me.”

Nico let out a frustrated sigh.

“I _told_ you another team was after us. There was no time,” he argued while heading towards the center of the ring, his Hades character always behind Percy’s Poseidon. “We agreed on a plan for a reason.”

“Geez, you never chill, do you?” Percy asked as a rhetorical question, trying to focus on where they were and what items he still had to gather.

That was their fourth match of the day. Percy had already gamed a bit on his own that afternoon until he had received a notification from Nico inviting him to play.

The fun and excitement of the game were still there but, now that Percy had agreed to play as Poseidon, his reaction time had definitely slowed down. Not being used to Poseidon’s individual abilities and still having not yet figured out how to apply their plan in practice, he was now the team’s Achilles heel. That was why Nico kept on exercising his right to tell him what to do, making Percy extremely frustrated.

He was still asking himself why the hell he had bent to his teammate’s attempt to persuade him in the first place.

Heading towards some shacks still full of boxes to loot, Percy rehearsed the plan in his mind for maybe the tenth time in the past hour.

It had apparently been simple: Percy would have been the one to check for enemies and engage in combat from a distance. Nico could, instead, hide and do his sniper thing without being bothered. Then, in case Percy would have been too low on health points to keep going alone, he would have used Poseidon’s special ability to cover his ass and recharge. At the same time, Nico would have used Hades’ powers to distract the enemy and give Percy time to heal.

The night Nico had explained this to Percy, they elaborated all possible scenarios to be prepared just in case. As much as he liked improvising, he too found it nice to at least have an idea of what to do.

It had been perfect, really. Except, putting it into practice had not been that easy.

Percy still needed to remember to not engage in close combat right away, though. Every time he had allowed himself to forget, he ended up being downed too fast for him to use Poseidon’s ability, or for Nico to actually help. It was also important to look around and pay attention to all his surroundings and not just wait for the enemy to spot, aim, and shoot to move.

Also, if he was definitely not used to planning ahead, Nico was definitely not used to have someone else in his team to depend on. Acting alone was not an option anymore since they had switched to the duo server instead of the trio; not even for some loner like him.

So, Percy had to remind his teammate to not treat him like a puppet, and Nico had to warn Percy to think before acting.

Fair enough, Percy thought as he emptied his backpack of incompatible items. They both needed to get used to the new gaming style.

Percy couldn’t be mad about that.

“Someone’s there,” Nico alerted, pinging a point in front of them in red. “Try to get closer. I’ll go around.”

Percy’s mind lightened up again while turning towards the pinged point on the map.

He could detect some movement between two shacks and a river, which was absolutely perfect for him.

One of Poseidon’s abilities was that of turning into water and sneaking up on enemies from the floor, to which he had been completely ignorant about a week prior. Of course, the wetter the ground was, the better.

Being close to the river definitely gave them an advantage.

“Yeah, man, finally,” Percy sighed, getting restless. “On it.”

“Don’t screw it up,” Nico replied, already running inside the building behind them to hide.

“ _You_ ’re the one who should trust me, ghostie,” Percy argued, throwing a grenade towards the first enemy, his Poseidon melting on the floor. 

He heard it detonate as he got closer to the spot, materializing close to the Apollo character he had spotted from afar. Firing and taking him down thanks to the grenade’s help, he moved to the side closer to the wall before being hit with some powerful energy-gun shots.

“Try to get them closer to where we were before,” Nico suggested, and Percy nodded to no one in particular.

“Don’t worry,” he replied, already backing up and running behind the closest corner.

His shields were almost entirely down, but he had no time to recharge. He was taking shots from directly above him, because one of the two players left had climbed the house and was now shooting from the roof.

That would have been a smart enough move, Percy thought calmly. If only Nico had not been there, that is.

“Stay there,” Nico commanded.

Percy reluctantly obeyed, cursing and letting his health points quickly decay before Nico started firing. He took down the guy in less than three shots.

The familiar sound of the game’s kill count going up relieved the tension on his shoulders, making him laugh from the relief.

“This is why I asked you to listen to me,” Nico muttered as Hades was approaching Poseidon to heal him and get him back on his feet.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever man,” Percy teased. “Wasn’t for my firing skills, we’d both be dead.”

“Those guys weren’t even that good,” Nico replied sternly before heading towards the death boxes of their enemies.

Percy followed him. “Man, what? That guy up there was smart, he found me right away.”

“Not very smart to expose himself like that,” Nico promptly replied.

That comment sparked a discussion that went on for the whole game, which, at last, they won in the end.

“You just need practice,” Nico had said to him after that last match. “You could even become one of the best in the server. Don’t let it go to your head, though.”

And that, though it felt patronizing as shit as he let Nico know, felt even better than the B+ he obtained in his History class the day after.

His grades were basically sky-rocketing like he had hoped from all the effort he was somewhat motivated to put in his assignments.

His mom had even set a couple extra appointments with his therapist for his ADHD. Therapy had certainly better than his experiences with meds, so he didn’t complain. One meeting per week had seemed to put him back on track and help him cope with the fact that his sleep schedule had been all over the place for the past weeks. Now, he could only game in the evenings until a certain hour when his mom would come in his room and make sure that both his PC and cellphone were off before sending him to bed.

Not being able to have his own rhythms as the almost-adult he was at that point kinda sucked, but, noticing the positive sides of scheduling, it was now challenging to convincingly ask for ten more minutes with his phone.

His ADD was also slightly more manageable at school. There were still times in which he seemed like a jerk and bother everyone else in the class with annoying noises from his pen and ask stupid stuff before thinking about the possible answer. But now, at least, it wasn’t that frequent anymore.

He felt he had control for the first time in months. So, that had been a nice turn.

With his renewed positive mindset, he put himself to work that Tuesday.

He was supposed to come back home from school that afternoon and get ready to study until it would have been dinner time. Annabeth had gladly agreed to help with his math and chemistry homework, in which Percy definitely put more effort compared to his school lessons thanks to her amazing teaching skills. Even though they could sometimes see each other only face timing, they still managed to work together efficiently enough.

She was still treating him like she would treat her younger brothers at times, but Percy always made sure to put on his most mature self in front of her to make her job a bit easier.

“See? You do remember things,” Annabeth had said to him while nodding at his last answer. “My guess is that you’ll do good on the test tomorrow. When did you say you’ll have your Chemistry test instead?”

“Friday,” he replied, sighing and lying back on his chair, looking at his cellphone’s camera. “Thursday will be the shittiest day.”

“It will not,” she replied, scolding him with her eyes. “Stop putting yourself down like that. It won’t be that terrible.”

“It will if I end up sleeping like shit again and dozing off in class,” Percy argued, playing with his pen. “Can you believe our chemistry teacher actually threatened me with detention because I was chewing my pencil?”

“Yeah, you told me,” she replied, looking back down at her papers and then glancing at her screen again. “Don’t bother trying to argue with people like that, you’re just going to end up in detention anyway just for breathing in their face.”

“Right? They’re another level of annoying,” he complained, spinning a bit on his chair and looking at the adhesive sticker stars on his ceiling. “Fuck, I always forget to remove that stuff from the ceiling. You know those have been there for more than, like, twelve years now? I was six when we hang them up there.”

“Percy,” Annabeth called, making him stop spinning and look back at his phone. “Focus for one second. Do you have any plans next week?”

He couldn’t process the question right because he was too busy staring at her bright gray eyes behind the screen.

“Huh? Next week?” He told himself, scratching his head and trying to remember. “Don’t think so. I’ll just have my evening gaming sessions and swimming practice. Maybe my psych on Monday. Why?”

She seemed to be contemplating, pulling her lips together and looking through her calendar on her phone, judging by the rapidly changing lights on her face.

“I have time on Tuesday after work to come to yours,” she spoke, looking back at the camera. “Around seven o’clock. We can grab dinner together somewhere. How’s that?”

Percy thought.

Next Tuesday sounded important in his mind, for some weird reason, so he tried to remember if there had been some mentioning of it recently that week.

When he didn’t come up with anything specific, he concluded that it had probably not been important anyway if he couldn’t remember it.

“That sounds great, not gonna lie,” Percy announced, getting closer to the camera. “You wanna try out that Chinese restaurant near my school?”

Annabeth smiled in a way that let Percy know she was satisfied with the outcome of her question.

“Why not? I haven’t had Chinese in a while,” she said, probably typing on her calendar app already. “So… seven o’clock? See you there?”

“Hell yeah,” he replied. “It’ll be on you, though, working girl.”

“You would never,” she joked, and they both laughed.

After Percy made sure he had thanked her profusely for her help, they wished goodnight to each other. He went to bed after eating some BBQ pork ribs made by Paul as a reward for his efforts.

The day after, he woke up refreshed enough to get ready in time. He promised himself he would study the bare minimum during the week to then have some free time to devote to gaming and also to spare for that Tuesday’s date with Annabeth.

That sounded so good, Percy thought, being with her again after a week. He had missed her for sure, but that was not easy to realize when his brain regularly stayed in its out-of-sight-out-of-mind mode because of his ADHD.

Checking his phone while walking from his English to his Gym class that day, he noticed a couple of Nico’s messages in his notification bar.

_I think I’ll be late on tuesday. family dinner and stuff._

_I’ll be on around 8 pm though, I’ll find a way_

Percy was confused.

He didn’t remember anything particular happening on Tuesday, he thought, scrolling up in their chat to try and find what the hell Nico was talking about.

Stumbling upon a screenshotted picture Nico had sent a few days earlier, and he froze in place in the middle of the corridor.

The three-hours NuOlympus event to win those battle passes.

“Shit,” he muttered, laying back against the lockers.

Now he remembered. Nico had told him about that event and made him promise to be there to gather battle passes to use later in the game in those rooms that could not be opened. All the best gears and armors were in those locked spaces, and they would have needed them for something Nico didn’t want to tell yet. They both had decided to do that together because it was very improbable that they would make it alone in a squad of three.

It would have been from six to nine in the evening, and though he tried to find a solution, fitting both appointments inside his schedule, he came up with nothing. He had no idea how to not disappoint one of them in the process.

That was not good, Percy thought, scratching his head and playing nervously with his hair.

He couldn’t just say no to Annabeth. It would have been really awful to cancel his plans just to play. But, playing with Nico would almost certainly have ensured their win; or at least their second to third place for the majority of the matches. That was a sure thing, and he could not hope to achieve the same result playing alone before seven p.m.

Shit, he thought again to himself, staring at his WhatsApp, trying to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of both events. He thought of the advice his therapist and the majority of adults around him had given him when dealing with hard decisions.

He hated every single second of it, but he came to the conclusion that his appointment with Nico had been the one he had agreed to first, in the end. Most of all, it was a one-time chance. His mind’s logic expected him to cancel with Annabeth, or at least postpone their date.

Calling her after school and explain the situation was the only solution to his dilemma.

He replied to Nico. _Cool, don’t worry about it_

After school, he stopped outside his house while staring at Annabeth’s contact on his screen.

Please don’t be angry, he prayed to no one while placing the phone close to his ear, hearing the dial tone on the other side.

It rang for a while before she answered with a tired voice. “Percy?” She asked, evidently surprised.

Great, he thought, cursing at the world for the probable awful timing of that conversation.

“Hey, um…” he stopped, hesitating. “Are you busy right now?”

“I’m heading to work. That asshole teacher didn’t allow more than a B on my presentation, and it’s still pissing me off quite a bit,” she complained, and Percy could hear the car noises around her along with her huffed breaths. “I’m starting to think he hates me.”

He tried a small laugh while playing with the hem of his hoodie.

“It’s ‘cause you’re smarter than him. Also, he’s probably got a small dick,” he joked. “You got a B, though, I mean, that’s good.”

He heard her breathy laugh on the other side of the line.

“Yeah, but you know I need a high GPA for many reasons,” she replied, lowering her voice. She sounded almost worried. “Anyway, you have something to tell me?”

Percy stayed quiet for a couple seconds, which was rare for him.

“Yeah, um…” he stopped again before deciding to just go for it and rip the bandaid off. “I forgot I had a thing on Tuesday night. Could you, like, make it a bit earlier? Maybe six p.m.?”

There was silence at the end of the line, but that could have just been because she was thinking.

Percy tried desperately not to worry.

“Honey, I told you I work until six,” she told patiently. “Can’t you move whatever you need to do?”

Shit, Percy thought. That was about to go downhill.

He didn’t even bother to comfort himself before speaking.

“I, um, can’t. That’s why I asked you,” he replied, lowering his voice to try and sound even sorrier than he already felt. “Can’t we do like, any other day of the week? Like, Saturday? I could come to yours and…”

“I’ll be out of town this weekend, Percy, I told you that already, too,” she snapped. “Why do you think I asked you about Tuesday?”

Okay, he was feeling awful now.

Not to mention the fact that he seemed to have forgotten basically every significant event that he may have needed to remember for that conversation.

Now not only he seemed like an idiot, but an asshole idiot too.

“Yeah, that’s true…” he tried, still hoping for some way to fix that. “I’m sorry about this, it didn’t cross my mind when you asked me, I didn’t have it written down because it was not an official thing yet, and…”

“Oh Christ,” she muttered to herself. “Percy, is this a gaming thing?”

 _Fuck_.

“No,” he started, stumbling on his words. “I mean, yes, it kinda is, but…”

“I can’t believe this,” she interrupted.

“It’s a one-time thing, it literally won’t happen again for a year or so, and I promised a friend I’d be on and stuff,” he confessed, resisting the urge to cover his own mouth.

He had just made stuff ten times worse when mentioning his friend.

Now she was going to think he cared more about his friends than spending time with her.

He was an idiot.

“I don’t get what’s more insulting to me,” she started sourly. “The fact that you consider gaming more important than your time with me, or the fact that you keep on ignoring me when I tell you to write down what you need to do to avoid canceling plans and disappointing people.”

He stayed quiet and listened, for once, looking at his own shoes and rubbing at his forehead as he paced back and forth on the sidewalk.

She was, officially, angry at him.

Great work, Percy.

“I’m not your mom, Percy, and I will not tell you what you need to do,” she dictated, the seriousness in her voice letting him intend the anger behind her words. “Forget that I’ll waste any more of my time in this conversation. Maybe you’ll grow up a bit if I’ll let you figure it out by yourself.”

He didn’t have the time to reply.

All he heard was the disconnect tone and his own footsteps stopping on the sidewalk.

He tried calling her again but, obviously, to no avail. He tried explaining his situation via text, but she had turned off her data connection. She was not receiving any of his messages.

She was outraged, Percy knew. She wasn’t the type to scream and yell, but he could hear the anger boiling in her throat when she spoke. He was sure she could have said much hurtful words, and that’s why she hung up before she could go off on her tangent.

He had no idea why that had angered her so much, though, considering that it had been a one-time thing. Cancel plans was not a habit of his anymore properly because his time with Annabeth had become so precious over the years that it had become a sporadic occurrence. Also, it was probably because she always reminded him of their plans together.

Feeling everything but calm, he went inside, finding the house empty and himself completely alone with his thoughts. The feeling of missed responsibility and shame the conversation had left him with were still there, and didn’t appear to want to leave him soon.

He didn’t want to think about himself as an overgrown child, but he was. He didn’t want to think about himself as an asshole, but he was.

And it was feeling useless to even try, because his brain was this defected mush of impulses and open tabs constantly playing audio and he couldn’t concentrate on anything anymore.

The days following that fight had been, in fact, awful to say the least.

He didn’t seem to concentrate on his homework anymore, despite he could now see the actual results of his past efforts.

Both his mom and Paul had tried to spur him into studying with the same motivation and effort he had put in before, but to seemingly no avail.

Trying to talk her into forgiving him had become useless, purely because she either didn’t have time, or was asking him to leave her alone for a while. They just talked about nothing, chit-chatting when they had time, and ignoring each other when they didn’t.

He could at least pretend to forget about what their fight said when playing, but logging out and his mind being flooded with all the memories yet again was seriously starting to wear him down.

It had only been two days, and Leo had invited him to hang out that Friday, just like he had expected. And, his mom was finally letting him go, probably hoping he would let off some steam by being with his friends again.

Usually, she would have been right.

Hanging out with his best friends could always leave him with enough energy to last an entire week.

It was usually him, Jason, Travis, Connor, and a couple of Leo’s other friends. They would hang out on Friday evenings while getting drunk and playing stupid stuff like _Five Nights at Freddie’s_ to have an excuse to yell and act stupid. All because they had once seen a Youtube video of some guys doing the same thing.

Also, Percy had discovered how extra fun shooter games could become when tipsy. With that kind of company around, the situation would mostly consist of people screaming at him to continuously fire at nothing to see other players react, and other annoying shit.

One of those times, when he was still a sophomore, became the time in which he tried weed for the first time, too; needless to say, he got so high he couldn’t even remember how to use the controller. From that moment, weed had become a sort of constant in his life, temporarily getting him out of whatever heavy circumstance life had put him under.

His mom didn’t know, even though he knew she had always suspected something was going on when he would call her, high, telling her that he was going to crash at his friend’s house for the night. People like Nico and his online friends didn’t have to know, either.

Nico had hinted at the fact that Percy had seemed off the last time they had played. Percy hadn’t had the strength and will to tell him about Annabeth and their relationship situation, though. Telling him about his love issues and drug habits might actually have been an explanation for why he was sometimes being even more of a jerk than usual. But, he obviously didn’t want to leave a bad impression. It was not like the kid was particularly impressionable, though; playing horror games as a hobby and being the next in line for his family’s funeral business probably didn’t leave him much of a choice to be sensitive.

Either way, both his parents and his teammate definitely didn’t have to know about his internal state of affairs.

He didn’t particularly enjoy burdening people with his emotional struggles.

But, what he could do was at least try to enjoy his time at Leo’s house.

So, he gladly accepted the invitation, much to Leo’s joy and excitement.

Vaguely knowing about his situation, Leo had ensured him the best of treatments and had promised to leave some of his grandma’s _enchiladas_ for him in the fridge. Percy had declined because being treated special just because of a fight with his girlfriend didn’t seem right; shit happened all the time, and people got through it. He had no idea how to do that, but, at least, he knew he was going to have a good time — both for himself and for his friends’ sake.

So, when putting some decent clothes on and later saying goodbye to both his mom and Paul, he decided to put on a smile and block out whatever negative feeling from surfacing.

Was he terrified that evening would have ended up badly because he was still feeling like just sleeping for days on end? Yes. He wasn’t going to do anything about it, though; he just hoped the alcohol and weed might have helped his state, along with some company.

Placing his longboard on the concrete just beneath his building, he started heading towards Leo’s house on Brooklyn’s southern side.

His mom would always advise him to wear a helmet and all that, and he still felt guilty for not listening to her advice. Not only on that, but on most aspects of his life.

“Don’t smoke,” “Don’t drink before 21,” “Don’t skateboard in between lanes,”; he felt like he was failing her with every wrong turn he took in life. And that included Annabeth.

Failing his girlfriend strangely felt like disappointing his mom, also because Percy knew how much she liked and cherished Annabeth as a person. She had told him, again and again, about how she was great for him, that she hoped their relationship would last, how she genuinely enjoyed having her over for dinner. Damn, she even made jokes about their future wedding.

And every single time he had simply known that wasn’t going to happen.

Not at all because of Annabeth, but because of him. Because he couldn’t stop feeling like a good-for-nothing, after all, it didn’t matter how much he tried.

He was good at sports, sure. But his mom would never make a big deal out of it, simply because she knew (as Percy did) that muscles don’t equal brains; and that she had always wanted him to possess the latter.

But what was he doing instead? Spending time with his friends getting high and fighting with his girlfriend for basically being an emotionally immature seventeen-year-old.

He was supposed to go to college, for Christ's sake, he thought watching the dark road running fast beneath his feet and board. His mom had plans for him, and all he had done until now was disappoint and make things difficult for her and his family.

People like him either ended up as constant job hoppers or somewhere homeless and high on synthetic drugs.

Both of those weren’t comforting prospects.

But, there was one thing he could do to show that he could still do something, and that was gaming.

Of course, it wasn’t much, and that could have gone bad very quickly. But it was a risk Percy was willing to take to feel that he was doing at least something; that he was worth at least a tiny bit of what his mom thought he was.

He eyed the street in which Leo’s house was located.

He didn’t realize how much time he spent thinking about stuff that wasn’t important. Still, at least he managed to renovate his sense of determination.

Gaming wasn’t just gaming at that point.

He had someone he trusted, who had the same objective in mind. Probably for very different reasons, but either way, that didn’t bother him.

He just needed to trust the future and his own abilities, because it was possible. Percy knew. Especially with someone else playing on his side.

Gazing at the small, yellow building and old front door, he rang the doorbell after walking the few steps towards the entrance. It took Leo a minute to open and for Percy to enter the apartment but, when he did, he was grinning widely.

“Oldie’s here, guys!” He announced loudly, notifying the others who were already gathered on the living room couch and armchairs.

“And he’s not alone,” Percy replied as he extracted a small, airtight plastic bag from his pants.

That was followed by a round of cheers.

“We’re _starving_ , man, what the heck took you so long?” Travis sang from in front of the TV.

“He’s not talking about food,” Connor pointed out, ironically cupping a hand around his mouth.

“Stop treating me like some junkie, bro, or I’m gonna tell them about those vintage gay magazines under…” Travis started, but was swiftly interrupted by Connor’s kick on his shin.

“Dad is at my grandmas’ house, and Nyssa is out partying,” Leo reported, ignoring that last bit of conversation, as Percy placed his board on the wall beside the door. “Harley is… well, she’s in her room now, but she shouldn’t be a problem.”

Percy looked at him then, frowning.

“You want to smoke with your little sister in the house?” He asked bewildered.

Leo quieted down for a moment like he was not expecting that kind of question.

“Like she’s going to complain,” Travis started again, still holding and massaging his lower leg. “As long as Charles’ here…”

“Right?” Connor continued, smirking slightly while looking at the person concerned on the other side of the couch, Wii controller already in hand and seemingly totally immersed in the game. “She’s turning to a thristbucket.”

“Dude, that’s _my_ sister we’re talking about here,” Leo warned, his tone dropping lower to seem more menacing. “You don’t wanna see my protective-brother side. My dad taught me how to deal with punks like you.”

“I’m still here, guys, you know,” Charles stated then, still focusing on the screen.

Percy started walking towards the center of the room, directly towards the beers on the coffee table in front of the TV.

“Wait, are you guys seriously playing _Mario Kart_?” He asked while opening his first beer can. “Like, unironically?”

“Yes, and I’m winning,” Charles spoke, evidently pleased.

“That’s utter bullshit,” Jason protested, and Percy noticed how he wasn’t even taking the time to adjust his glasses, probably lower on his nose than they should have been. “You can’t distract me the whole game and call it winning.”

“You’re distracted because you’re way behind, son, stop lying to yourself,” the other argued, still enjoying the situation.

Percy just chuckled and then sat on the floor, placing his small, precious bag on the table. His eyes were basically glued to the screen, colors and images flashing fast in front of his face.

“I’m probably regressing to a ten-year-old,” he started, sipping on his beer. “But this is fucking cool.”

“Man, it’s like _Clash of the Titans_ ,” Connor pretend-whispered in between the two.

“I was thinking _Cats & Dogs_,” Travis corrected while sitting on the armrest of the sofa, just beside Charles. “Jason’s the dog ‘cause he barks a lot.”

“As soon as I finish this, you’re dead,” Jason replied from the other side of the couch.

“No dog-shaming in this house, guys, that’s crossing a line,” Leo stated, throwing himself on his dad’s armchair. “Little Chico could hear you.”

“ _I_ wouldn’t want to anger him,” Percy added while still being totally invested in the game. “Next time he’ll chop off your dick.”

“He’d definitely choke on it,” Travis started, a pleased expression on his face. “He’s too tiny to swallow all that.”

“If you could stop talking about your penis, Travis, I might still have a chance to win,” Jason reprimanded, still looking relatively unaffected by the conversation.

“You never _had_ a chance, Grace,” Charles chimed, getting closer to the TV.

“Come _on_ , you can’t just – “ Jason tried, before being interrupted by the ending tune of the game.

“Fucking _told_ you,” Charles smirked as he laid back on the sofa calmly and composedly, his controller in hand and his arms crossed on his puffed chest. “You can’t beat a pro, son.”

“Fuck this shit,” Jason declared as he placed his controller beside him on the sofa, his comment covered by Connor and Leo’s loud, rejoicing voices.

“Percy, you’re next,” Charles challenged, looking directly at him.

Percy looked at the dark-skinned guy and his smirking, confident expression while sipping on his beer. He raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re really sure about this?” He replied to the challenge, looking at least half as confident as the other.

“What, you scared, Potter?” Charles cited, raising an eyebrow at him in turn.

Oh, did Percy love challenges.

Especially when he needed something to feed his ego and buttered self-esteem.

“You wish,” Percy answered.

His legs were already getting restless.

“I’ll never get these _Harry Potter_ references, man,” Percy heard Travis mutter while already getting up from the floor.

“Wait!” Leo exclaimed, making Percy stop in his tracks and gathering everybody else’s attention. “Let’s make things interesting.”

Saying that with the same face Leo had when looking at a bucket of spicy chicken wings, Percy already knew he probably shouldn’t have listened.

“Let’s gamble,” Leo scanned both Percy and Charles with playful, glistening eyes. “Our Percy here will beat Charlie while mad high.”

Percy felt all the eyes in the room move directly towards him.

“That wouldn’t even be a game,” Jason stated, arms crossed and adjusting his glasses.

“What are you implying there?” Percy asked then with an accusatory tone, already cracking his knuckles.

It could be done. It could totally be doable.

“ _I_ could beat you at Mario Kart,” the blonde argued. “You go nuts when you’re high.”

“Hey, Leo’s the one who thought he was inside the game and forgot how to play,” Percy stated defensively.

“He forgets a lot of stuff when he’s high,” Travis teased, making Connor giggle a bit after exchanging glances.

“I’m really gonna let Chico eat your balls,” Leo warned before looking at both Charles and Percy again, a sly smile still on his lips. “Come on, man, I thought you trusted yourself a bit more.”

Percy didn’t trust himself with anything.

Not with studying, not with relationships, not with daily chores, not with any kind of responsibility.

But gaming was a whole other story.

“I’m in,” Percy announced, confidently sitting back down on the sofa and rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll make you regret asking.”

“Deal!” Leo chimed, clapping his hands just once. “The losers buy pizza and nuggets. Also, the frozen food store lasagna is occupying the space I need for my Oreo ice cream, so I’ll make it the prize.”

Charles looked at Percy with a bold expression, still sitting comfortably on the sofa.

Percy ignored the part of his conscience telling him that it was a stupid-ass game, that it probably wasn’t worth all the hype, and that he would have probably lost. He covered it with other, lighter thoughts while crumbling the grass he extracted from the bag instead, taking out all the necessary to roll.

“Sirs, everything you want to bet has to be on the table,” Leo recited, standing up from his armchair.

“Wait, dead-ass?” Jason asked then, incredulous.

“Well, I like to gamble from time to time,” Connor commented, already searching his pockets for anything he could possibly have to play along. “Also, I like lasagna.”

“ _And_ pizza,” Travis added, throwing a small pocket knife on the table along with a five-dollar bill. “You better be good, Charlie, that knife has some sentimental value for me.”

Meanwhile, Connor threw another five dollars, some pennies, and candy on the table.

“I stand with Percy on this one,” he announced, laying back on the sofa and causing Travis to click his tongue.

“You’re not thinking rationally, little bro,” he scolded him. “You always have to be that one hopeless idealist.”

“Didn’t you guys have a shared account?” Percy asked then.

They both fell silent, looking at each other like they had just remembered the other existed.

“Right,” they said with one voice, going back at eyeing the TV.

Jason reluctantly placed his few dollars on Charles’ side of the table.

Percy looked at him wide-eyed, pretty disappointed.

“Grace, you fucking traitor,” he grunted, already rolling up his joint.

“Sorry, man, but it’s already obvious who’s going to win,” Jason argued, looking back at him with a sorry expression. “And I have to save up for college.”

“You’re already rich, what are you talking about?” Percy added, still offended.

The blonde shrugged his shoulders. “Every amount of money has value,” he stated, adjusting his glasses.

“Brotherhood has value too,” Percy retaliated. “You and your mom’s Wall Street ass will regret this.”

By the time Leo had placed his own bets (which consisted of another five dollars) on Percy’s side, he was finishing rolling up his joint.

Percy closed the paper with a swift motion of his fingers, throwing the remaining extra length on the table, extracting his lighter from his jeans’ pocket.

“Now, guys, sit back and enjoy the show,” Leo announced, sitting back down after having collected the bets in two separate plates.

“And what a show it’ll be,” Charles stated then, studying the TV and going back to the game’s title screen. “We’ll enjoy our pizza afterward.”

“Like hell you will,” Percy spoke, sounding way more confident than he really felt.

He lightened up his joint and inhaled deeply.

Feeling the warm smoke in his throat and tasting the aftertaste of weed in his mouth, he felt his whole body relax, his mind calm down, and the open tabs in his brain starting to close.

He had missed weed more than he would have like to admit, but that was not to his advantage; not smoking in a while meant that he was not that used to the effects anymore. And that was some good haze, no doubt about that.

Percy didn’t have a reason why he was going along with that game. Still, he didn’t want to think about that when relieving the stress from everything going on in his life.

Also, he was trying to ignore his tendency to do stupid shit when stressed out. He preferred pretending to be normal enough to cope with his life in healthier ways.

He got up from the floor then, ignoring the conversation about Leo’s dad’s weird obsession with chihuahuas, and sat on the sofa facing the TV, directly on Charles’ opposite side.

Leo smelled the air then, letting out a moan of approval.

“Man, what the heck, that’s some good smell,” he stated, his legs already bouncing up and down from impatience. “If you roll me one, I swear I’ll write your whole next English essay.”

“Dude, I don’t mean to be rude,” Percy replied, scoffing a bit. “But I write better essays. And I have dyslexia.”

“He’s not wrong,” Jason agreed then, configuring the second Wii controller after Charles.

“Those essays hold a value that you modern-timers don’t understand because you don’t get my art,” Leo argued then. “The great Garcìa Lorca never listened to critics.”

“Here we go again…” Jason commented in a low voice.

“Man, who are you even talking about?” Travis asked, confused.

Leo dismissed him with a gesture of the hand. “I don’t expect you to know him, you _cabrón_.”

“You roll it yourself, man, it’s you who had the idea,” Percy interrupted then, already feeling the effects creeping up inside his brain.

“Fine, fine,” Leo snorted, ignoring the outraged expression Travis still wore on his face from his last comment. “I feel like a wife in a dying twelve-year-old marriage.”

“I have to remind you I never agreed to be your husband,” Percy pointed out.

He inhaled yet again from his fuming joint, relaxing from the feel of the endless open tabs in his mind closing one by one.

And _that_ was one of the most liberating feelings in the world.

It didn’t take long before he was completely stoned and totally lost inside his own, small world of contentment and made-up happiness.

Jason’s hand waved slowly in front of his eyes after a couple minutes. “Guys, he’s officially gone,” he stated as a doctor does when dismissing a patient.

“Let the match begin,” Leo chimed, rubbing his hands together in a Disney-villain fashion.

Percy briefly registered Charles looking towards him.

He looked back, slowly, and raised an eyebrow at him, slightly smirking.

“You ready, punk?” Percy spoke, grabbing the controller in his hands.

“As I’ll ever be, you brat,” Charles sneered, going back with his eyes to the screen. “150cc Grand Prix?”

“Hell yeah,” Percy replied, staring at the screen and gathering as much concentration as he could. “Special cup. Bring it on.”

The first race had been good enough for him.

Charles ended up second while he ended up in third place.

That must have been totally not what Jason and Travis were expecting, though, because they both seemed to pale at the result. Travis even tried to sneakily take back his pocket knife from the table, causing Leo to swiftly deliver a slap on the back of his hand.

Percy, on the other hand, was seriously feeling euphoric. He had realized that even himself hadn’t believed he could do it; that was the reason for his internal freak out after looking at the race’s results that told him he _could_ do it.

He could show himself and the people in his life that he had competence.

He was good at this. He could be confident about something.

The second race, the one on the Moonview Highway, began as literal hell.

If the first one had been chill enough (big roads, not many things happening at the same time), the second one was full of elements moving at the same time, lights flashing and making his brain fire like an epileptic mess.

Despite that, he trusted his muscle memory with that one; he let his hands do the work without really overthinking about it.

He had played that game so many times at home he had won every possible reward.

That did kind of work, because he ended up in fifth place, while Charles ended up in third.

That seemed to calm both Jason and Travis down, but Leo and Connor were both still trying to cheer him up and offering support with pats on his shoulders.

“You’re running out of luck, Percy,” Charles said at some point, as the countdown for the third track in Bowser’s Castle appeared on the screen.

Percy just delivered him a shit-eating grin before speeding in front of him barely ten seconds in. He sat in religious silence as he kept fighting for the first position, confidence boiling inside him.

That was one of his favorite tracks of all time; of course he would have won. Being high was making his movements swifter, letting him focus more on what he was doing with his fingers and arms.

When he actually ended up in second place, he grinned widely and threw his hands up.

“Boom, baby!” He rejoiced, probably too loudly, covered by Leo and Connor’s cheers and whistles.

“Wait for the last one, Jackson,” Charles warned, not letting his bitterness show. “This is my favorite.”

“That’s _my_ second favorite, son, you have no chance,” Percy stated, fully acknowledging his own lie.

He felt his hands and arms tingle as they rode on the Rainbow Road, his eyes not even blinking from the concentration he was putting on just trying to stay inside the road.

Falling outside would have been the end. And, there was no way Charles was going to fall; he may have been slow, but he knew how to control his vehicle. Percy’s style was fast and reckless, as usual.

During the second round, though, Percy was still slightly behind.

They were both in between third and fifth place, but Percy was in light disadvantage. Also because he kept on receiving shitty items like banana peels and green shells. That wouldn’t have been a problem, though, if only Charles had been as unlucky as him in that regard.

Halfway through the second round, his ears picked up the sound of his phone’s notification tone chiming just above the game’s music.

His attention quickly shifted outside of the screen, and he blinked a couple times to stop his eyes from looking down on the coffee table at his own phone.

That was not good, he thought, and halfway started to panic.

What if that had been Annabeth telling him that she finally wanted to talk to him? What if that had been his mom asking him to come home early for some reason?

What if that was Paul?

No, that couldn’t be. His parents would have called right away if that had been an emergency.

Still, that could always be Annabeth. Who else could it be, at that hour?

His eyes went wide as he remembered he hadn’t told Nico he wouldn’t have been online the whole night.

Shit, he thought. That could be him.

Just as he thought that, he watched his bike taking a too large turn on one of the bigger roads.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, trying to desperately turn around and avoid the empty void on the side of the road. “Don’t you dare fall, don’t…”

Unfortunately, he was too late.

He watched as his Diddy Kong character screamed while falling down into the dark space under the rainbow road, and he stared.

He heard Leo and Connor both sucking in a breath in shock, while Travis laughed shamelessly and Jason let out a sigh of relief.

“I thought you were seriously going to win, man,” the blonde said then, calmly.

“Come on, maybe you can still do it,” Charles pitied him, and _that_ Percy could not tolerate.

“Time-out,” he declared before pausing the game as soon as his character got back on the road. “I need to check my phone.”

“What the _fuck_ , man?” Travis exclaimed then, looking at him and then Leo. “This cannot be valid.”

“He’s ADHD, let him do his thing,” Jason defended him then, and Percy was grateful for that intervention as he picked up his phone.

He unlocked his screen and looked at his notifications.

Mostly things he didn’t care about, like notifications from his Reddit account and pending Discord messages. He opened the preview of his last WhatsApp notification.

He felt his body release the tension he didn’t know it was holding when he saw Nico’s name above the text.

_probably won’t be on today, got a test tomorrow._

The sigh he expelled from his nose finally let him release the final tension on his shoulders.

He locked his phone again and placed it on the table, muting it.

Now he was ready.

“Now,” Percy started, cracking his neck and going back into his initial position. “I’m gonna beat your ass.”

Charles just looked at him, smirking.

“That’s my guy,” Leo sang before Percy played the game again, this time focusing all his energies on the game.

Some minutes later, he cut the finish line while on barely second place.

Charles was in fourth.

The satisfaction he felt as he basically threw the Wii controller back on the sofa, swiftly jumping up from the couch and triumphantly throwing his hands up, was nothing like he had ever felt.

Leo was basically screaming, while Connor just stared at the screen with eyes wide and his hands covering his mouth like he had seen a ghost. Travis, Jason, and Charles, on the other hand, all wore utterly shocked expressions, looking at the screen like it was cursed.

Percy was also internally screaming. Or maybe externally, too, despite his muscles feeling like a warm, relaxed mush.

“Guess we’ll have pizza _and_ lasagna, guys,” Percy announced, feeling the wonderful and egoistic emotion of pride wash over him like a nice, hot shower after a long day of work.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” A female voice came from the corridor behind the sofa, making everyone rapidly turn, and their cheers die down in a couple of seconds. “I’m trying to get ready here.”

Percy turned too, only to be met with Hailey’s confused and annoyed stare.

She was dressed with a cute pink top and some tight, black, high-waist jeans held high by a black-and-golden belt. Also, she had her hair up in a bun, and some makeup on that was clearly not yet in place.

“Well, Percy just…” Leo started in his most professional voice, standing up, and then stopped. He looked at her with squinted eyes. “You always dress like that to sleep?”

“No, you _cabrón_ , I’m going out. And you’re disturbing my makeup routine…” Her voice died shortly after while she stared at the guy at the end of the sofa. “Oh, hi Charles!”

“Told you,” Travis whispered to Connor, who just started giggling uncontrollably.

“Umh, hi…” said Charles, wearing an awkward smile and greeting her with a gesture of the hand.

She smiled back before Leo could interrupt their little moment. “Wait, what? You’re going where?” he questioned then, crossing his arms.

“I’m going with Nyssa,” she said, turning back to her usual, sharp tone.

“And _papi_ ’s giving you permission to do that,” Leo asked inquisitively, eyebrows raising.

“Well, no,” Hailey said, slowly. She smiled slyly. “But, I thought you would give me permission if I threaten to tell _papi_ about what you’re smoking.”

There was silence, except for Percy and Travis’ whistles of praise.

“Guys, whose side are you on, really?” Leo asked them before turning to his sister. “Fair enough. Since I’m a very good friend, I won’t let you spoil my friends’ fun…”

“Man, you were literally about to roll one yourself…” Connor tried then.

Leo interrupted him with his hand. “ _So_ ¸ I’ll let you go. This time,” Leo concluded in a cop-like fashion.

Hailey smiled from the entrance, a prideful expression on her tan face.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, going back to eyeing Charles and smiling. “Bye!”

She waved at him briefly, giggling before she was back upstairs again.

Percy looked at Leo with his most shit-eating expression.

“Who’s had the crazy idea to put you in charge here?” He questioned.

“No lasagna for you, skater boy,” Leo talked back before he was off to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, Percy had finished his joint after passing it on to everyone else (apart from Charles, the guy not being into the smoking thing at all). In front of him, there was a piece of lasagna, a full, XL pepperoni pizza, a bucket of chicken nuggets, and even more beer.

If heaven existed, Percy thought, that was precisely how it had to look like.

He dived right in, biting his pizza slice like it was some kind of five-star snobbish gourmet dish and drank a whole glass of beer in less than a minute.

Jason and Charles were now in a Mario Kart Wii re-match while both Travis and Connor were discussing some of their family stuff with Leo, commenting on how Jason totally sucked in between sentences.

Percy’s brain, on the other hand, seemed torn between half-asleep and extremely active. His legs still fidgeting, and his eyes staring at the screen, he suddenly remembered Nico’s unanswered message on his notification bar.

Practically jumping to take his phone and unlocking it, he slightly hit Jason on the arm with his elbow.

“Y’know, I don’t trust you when you’re quiet,” the blonde stated, briefly glancing at him and then staring at the TV again. “Who’s that?”

Percy only registered the end question.

“Huh?” He asked, swiftly tapping on Nico’s WhatsApp chat. “No one.”

“So that no one is why you jumped your phone?” Jason asked rhetorically, mindlessly tapping on the controller’s buttons.

“It’s no one, really,” Percy replied without too much thought. “Just a friend.”

He began typing his reply. _It’s okay, I’m out anyway._

“Is that why you fought with Annabeth?” Jason then asked, raising his eyebrows.

Percy stopped to look at him with a confused look.

“What?” Asked Percy huffily. “What do you mean? He’s a friend. We play together and stuff.”

“Oh, nevermind,” Jason replied. “I thought it was a girl, you know. Since you freaked out when you got the text.”

“I didn’t, man,” argued Percy, annoyed. “Don’t go all psych on me.”

He glanced back at his phone.

Nico was typing.

That wasn’t a freak-out, Percy thought. It was just his ADD and a good dose of dope messing with him.

Also, he came to really enjoy texting Nico, but that didn’t have anything to do with the reason why he was on his phone at that moment.

He just needed a break from external stimuli to fully enjoy his meal and the small sparks of flavor it elicited in his weed-activated taste buds.

_I’ll be on tomorrow all evening anyway. see u then._

That was great news. A corner of his mouth lifted when typing back his reply. _Cool I’ll be there_

Then, Nico went offline.

Percy was left staring at his profile picture (a realistic digital drawing of Noctis from _Final Fantasy XV,_ which was, in all honesty, pretty cool), wondering.

He couldn’t really trace his line of thought when he came to the conclusion that he needed to talk to Nico to make his day finally turn for the best.

He was already with his mates, which was good, no doubt about that. Somehow, though, the thought of Nico being there would have given him an even better feeling.

He kinda still needed to keep himself from going back to his spiral of self-esteem-killing thoughts, he pondered. He saw no harm in that.

Percy started typing again. _What test u studying for anyway?_

Locking his phone, he put it in his pocket again, making sure its vibration was on.

He turned back to the others, who were now celebrating the fact that Charles had won yet again, and that Jason was basically questioning his whole status as gamer and golden kid.

Percy comforted him with a squeeze of the shoulder, smirking because his reaction was genuinely amusing. “Remember, son, money has more value than this.”

“You shut up, man,” grunted Jason, ignoring his comment.

Jason actually had some kind of reputation. The straight-A student, the to-be-lawyer child of a high-middle-class family, one of the best football players in his grade. He had no idea what it meant, having absolutely nothing to lose.

Percy was happy at least he had the potential to actually do something with his life.

After what seemed like minutes, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He swiftly took it out again, reading the screen, his vision swimming.

_english literature and italian_

Percy replied quickly and thanked his autocorrect for making him sound sober. _Man you study Italian?_

Under Nico’s name on his screen, the “online” status was still on. Then, he started typing.

_my dad wants me to learn grammar. he gives me tests like I’m following an advanced course. so yeah that sucks_

Percy’s dyslexia never went along well with weed and alcohol. He managed to answer, still. _That’s crazy, you’re like a child genius_

_I literally speak italian since the day I was born. that’s not a genius trait._

That might have been a stupid comment. _Oops. Right_

Still, it was so cool. Nico was so cool. How could he manage, doing well in everything he did?

He was a fantastic gamer and a smart student. He was bilingual _and_ already spoke English like he was in college. For some reason, Percy felt that ugly feeling of inferiority coming in.

He kept on typing to stop it. _Still that’s so cool. How do you manage doing all that stuff?_

Percy anxiously waited for Nico’s next message.

_it’s not a big deal, really. I don’t go out anyway, so I got time to do plenty of stuff._

He frowned.

“Want some?” Jason asked suddenly, meeting Percy with a second fuming joint in his right hand and a skeptical expression.

Percy looked at the cigarette.

He should have said no.

“Sure,” he said, taking it in his left hand. “Thanks, man.”

“You realize you’ve been smiling at your phone for the past ten minutes, right?” Jason questioned nonchalantly. Like he was talking about the weather.

Percy looked at him with suspicion, taking a puff and gladly pouring the smoke in the blonde’s face just to be annoying.

“So, you’ve been looking at me for ten minutes?” He asked, changing the topic. “You have something to tell me, son?”

“I thought you may have something to tell me, considering this guy’s a dude,” Jason argued, searching for another slice of pizza.

“Except I have a girlfriend,” Percy started, going back to staring at the screen in his hands.

He typed the half-finished text. _Why’s that?_

Jason raised his eyebrows. “Man, I was joking,” he explained, looking at him and adjusting his glasses.

“Are you guys telling secrets? ‘Cause I really want to know,” Leo chimed in, his half-stoned voice echoing through the room.

Percy just reflexively locked his phone for some strange, automatic reason. He decided to ignore the feeling that he was doing something bad and instead put on a neutral face.

“Percy got offended because I pointed out he was smiling at his friend’s messages,” Jason stated calmly. “Now he thinks I called him gay.”

That asshole.

“That’s not true,” started Percy, but he was soon interrupted.

“What friend?” Asked Travis, swiftly turning to face Percy from his sitting position on the floor.

“Some guy he met online,” Jason clarified, causing everyone else in the room to just sit quietly for a second.

During those moments, Percy’s mind had the time to go into full panic mode. He tried to not let it show.

“Cut it, Jas, don’t put weird ideas into their minds,” Percy tried, playing it cool while taking another and final puff before placing the finished joint on the pink ashtray.

“I always knew you were into dudes, man, my gaydar is never wrong,” Connor stated while proudly sipping on his beer.

“That’s ‘cause you’re gay, bro,” Travis added, obtaining another kick on the leg from his brother, moaning and curling up on the floor.

“Go ask Annabeth if I’m gay or not,” Percy scowled, annoyed. “Then come back to me with the results.”

“So what, man, you could be bi,” Connor started again. “My gaydar _has_ to be right. How do you feel about Brad Pitt?”

“Or, how do you feel about Jason here?” Leo asked with pretend-seriousness, to which Jason grunted and covered his forehead with one hand. “Or Charles, you know, if you’re into _macho_ dudes.”

“I feel I need to throw up,” Percy replied, getting more annoyed by the minute. “I’m gonna take a piss.”

Since that was going nowhere, he decided to just leave the conversation.

If he couldn’t even enjoy a conversation with another person without it being considered romantic, then he could easily consider himself a fuckboy.

“The lube’s in the second cupboard to the left!” Leo called as Percy was heading to the bathroom.

“I’ll read the label when I shit,” he replied, entering the bathroom and closing the door behind him, not bothering to lock himself inside.

He was still eyeing his cellphone on his and Nico’s chat when he saw the new message.

_I don’t like it._

Percy stopped in his tracks to the toilet typing his answer. _You're just locked inside 24/7?_

He put his cellphone on the stand next to the toilet, did what he needed to, and waited for the chime of his notification tone.

After casually washing his hands, he heard it going off.

_and why do you care?_

That's right, Percy thought. He shouldn’t have asked. _Right. Sorry_

He waited for the reply for what seemed like an eternity, laying his back on the ceramic sink.

_nvm. it's okay_

_it's cause I have anxiety stuff. I don’t talk about it though, so just leave it._

Oh. Percy typed again. _Really?_

Nico always seemed so sure of himself. He could act as efficiently as a military general when he started to get serious about what he was going to do. Uptight and mature and all that stuff.

Percy really had to remind himself to respect people’s boundaries to just leave some topics alone.

Nico had anxiety issues. So what? That didn’t change anything about their friendship, right?

It's not like Percy needed to know everything about him. And it's not like he was feeling disappointed because his supposed online friend and gaming partner didn’t want to talk about his personal issues with him.

But, Percy now needed to make him feel at ease.

He didn’t want Nico to think that he had some kind of prejudice towards him. _That's fine. I also have ADHD but I don’t like to talk about it_

Percy waited for his reply, slowly realizing that confessing it was feeling strangely good.

_I would have never guessed. really._

Percy smiled. _That obvious?_

_I mean, no. I just sort of guessed._

Nico was not the first one telling him that.

It still was surprising, though, considering their friendship had been online-based. _Well I would have never guessed with you. Makes sense why you're emo now_

As Percy realized what he had just written and its implications, he widened his eyes and started typing again. _I mean, no, that's not a bad thing_

He typed back, unsatisfied. _That was a joke_

And again. _Sorry_

_chill. I get what you mean._

_I'm not emo tho. I just like dark stuff._

Percy let out a small sigh of relief when he wrote again. _So you don’t listen to people screaming about how their life sucks?_

_… sometimes. only when it's good stuff._

There he was, back to the living stereotype. Percy smirked. _Like what?_

_stuff you wouldn’t know about._

Oh, so that's the game they were playing? _You didn’t answer the question ghost king_

_stop calling me that or I'll block you_

Percy smiled again. _Fair enough ghost boy_

_seriously?_

He let out a small laugh as he resumed typing, now sitting on the edge of the white bathtub. _Okay, I'll start. My favorites are Post Malone and Pop Smoke_

_only know them by name. and I'm not gonna tell you anyway_

Percy scoffed. _Why, cause you're afraid of confirming the fact that you’re emo?_

_then you just confirmed yourself being a pothead_

He stopped because, well, that was kinda true. He was not going to hide it, though. _Well, I am. I'm literally high rn._

_wait, for real?_

He frowned before realizing what he had just said.

Well, Percy thought. Goodbye to his still half-respectable image. _Yea. Smoked a personal and then some more. Wasn't supposed to tell you though, weed and ADD made me do it_

_honestly don’t know how that feels._

Percy really didn’t want to get into the feeling. That would have consisted of him ranting for hours about nonsense. _You'll have to try it out. People tell me it also helps with anxiety you know_

_no thank you. I'm doing well enough on my own._

The kid was right, in the end, he thought. It was Percy who just felt the need to put some smoke into his system to decently deal with stressful circumstances. _Guess that's fair._

As soon as he hit send, he heard someone banging at the door.

“Man, the lube thing was a joke, you didn’t have to beat it in there y’know,” said Travis ironically, and Percy could hear someone else laugh in the background.

“Let me do my thing, man, okay?” Percy replied, not even bothering to get up. “I need alone time.”

“Never a memorable trip experience if you don’t masturbate,” Percy heard Connor say, and he rolled his eyes.

He decided to ignore, rereading his and Nico’s chat.

_I'll finish studying. enjoy your dope_

Percy felt something drop in his stomach. _I thought you had finished_

_you thought wrong._

_speak tomorrow._

He stared at the last messages before carefully typing his own. _Fair enough. Speak soon_

Percy stared until Nico’s online status disappeared and, with that, his distraction from the fact that he had basically locked himself in his friend’s bathroom to exchange texts with a guy whom he had met just some weeks prior.

That all seemed off for some reason, but he let it slide with the constant flow of his thoughts.

His phone locked and his mind back to the present again, he exited the restroom with a thoughtful expression.

Everyone else was now on the sitting spots scattered around the room, still deciding which other game was worth playing. They ended up playing _Smash Bros_ while they gulped down every can of beer present in the house and ate all the food still present on the table. They laughed at Leo’s poor gaming skills, ate chocolate and caramel ice-cream dessert, went outside to play with Leo’s dad’s chihuahua dogs, and settled on a _The Hangover_ marathon, being the only movie series every one of them had seen and enjoyed at least a bit.

During the second movie, Jason and Charles both fell asleep on the sofa, and Travis and Connor received an angry call from their father commanding them to come home; turns out, their parents had no idea they were supposed to hang out at someone else’s house and had never given them permission to go out the evening before family-reunion-day. The only people left were now Percy and Leo, who had the task to hide every sign of illicit activity from the living room and the kitchen. Percy gladly contributed before accepting Leo’s invitation to sleep in his bedroom after gifting Jason and Charles with some covers and pillows.

He fell asleep on Leo’s bed as soon as he placed his cheek on the pillow, his head on the lower side of the bed and his feet near Leo’s head.

His dreams consisted of Annabeth leaving him and Nico ditching him for some other player for not being “good enough”.

He woke up with a hangover before finally heading back home for lunch, avoiding his phone like it was the plague.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since I love disclaimers: don't be like Percy here. drugs are bad for your body and your mind and are often unhealthy coping mechanisms for other issues.
> 
> I just like to write about this stuff because it seems more realistic than an adolescent kid having no problems at all and being responsible and not making stupid mistakes. also I like the problems that may arise from this. ;-)))
> 
> also can I just say that Leo's chihuahuas reflect the association in my head between Leo Valdez and that danger doggo vine. I'm really sorry.
> 
> (follow me on [tumblr](https://thenewcancro.tumblr.com/) if you want!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I have a confession to make. I conceptually know Percy lives in Manhattan and I've known that all along. so there's literally no reason why I thought about Percy being in Brooklyn until this chapter here. no idea how that happened, but it's just a couple mentions, so I'll correct them in the future.  
> apart from that, writing this chapter has felt like giving birth to a huge baby. it's satisfying in the end, but I literally never wanna re-live this experience ever again. I'm way too late with this update, but I have something to compensate this with.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy!

Percy closed the door behind him as he entered the house, finding his mom already cooking in the kitchen.

“Hello, dear,” she spoke while throwing a piece of salmon in a pan. Pancakes were already on the table, to Percy’s appreciation. “How was your night?”

He looked at her with what he imagined was not his happiest and joyous expression. “Good, I guess,” he answered automatically, heading for his bedroom. “Where’s Paul?”

His mom looked at him up and down before replying. “He’s working an extra shift,” she said sweetly. “Did something happen?”

Percy just kept on walking, his heavy steps resounding on the tile floor. “Nah, just tired,” he lied, placing his longboard outside his bedroom door. “I’m gonna shower.”

He entered his small room, shutting the door.

Eyeing his chair in front of the computer, he noticed how the pile of his clothes on its back was now becoming too big even for his own standards. He wrote a mental note to himself, remembering to clean his room that afternoon to avoid thinking about the night before and the pile of study he had accumulated.

The anxiety and melancholy in his chest were all part of the aftermath of the substances he had forced into his system the night before; the feeling was familiar enough for him to understand that. Still, he couldn’t seem to shake them off as easily as he used to.

Throwing his phone on his bed and dragging himself down the corridor to the bathroom, he walked into the shower hoping to wash away at least some of the guilty thoughts swirling in his mind. The hot water was nice but, apart from feeling his muscles relax, it didn’t have the desired effect on his brain.

He opened the shower curtains still thinking about everything that he could have done better.

His conversation with Nico was replaying in his mind like a song he couldn’t get out of his head. He didn’t know what was keeping his thoughts there; it might have been the way Nico seemed angry or, worse, disappointed. It might also have been the fact that he had broken his promise to keep his image clean and not fall into the defected, reckless underachiever role that he had tried to hide from him.

Percy still couldn’t quite place why what Nico might think of him seemed to be so important. Caring that much wasn’t like him at all.

Not everybody was made to always enjoy his company, and it was alright. He tended to leave the wrong impression when talking to either particularly uptight or particularly introverted people; adults tended to not like him that much, too. Still, it rarely happened to him to worry so much about someone’s image of him.

Whatever image Nico had in his mind, though, Percy was sure to have ruined. Not that he was a stranger to being a disappointment.

Or, maybe he was just being dramatic, he thought as he rinsed his hair in the mirror.

He stared at his face in front of him and noticed the slight bags under his eyes. Talking to himself in his mind, he let his thoughts wander back to Annabeth, school, and his family.

He recognized he was still being patronized by everyone. He didn’t know how to make it stop, though, because it seemed of everything he could try, the only thing he could actually succeed in was gaming.

But that didn’t mean anything to anyone of them; not even his friends, even though they did explicitly recognize him as weirdly talented.

He thought back on his victory the night before. That could have been a sign that he, brain still being a mess of badly wired connections, was following the right path. At least that was one interpretation.

He had killed his hope for any other educational accomplishments apart from his elementary school’s diploma years back. Swimming was still somewhere in his mind, but he felt it was already too late to put extra effort into something that would only substitute his lack of hard work in studying.

He would always go back to gaming; it didn’t matter what he tried to think of.

Nico had mentioned once that he would have liked to, hypothetically, become a professional gamer. He hadn’t mentioned anything else on the subject yet, but Percy still felt strongly about that.

Could he do it? he asked himself, staring at the mirror. Looking into his own green eyes, he knew the answer was yes.

His psychologist would always talk about setting a goal and creating small steps to start working towards it. He had never actively listened to that advice, just because most of the time he had no idea what he was doing.

But now, maybe, he did.

A corner of his mouth turned up and, suddenly, he started to think about his programs for the day. He dried his hair, put on some clean clothes, and headed for his bedroom again. The smell of cooked salmon flooded the house as he picked his phone up from the covers and sat on his bed, firstly checking his pending notifications and later heading for the kitchen.

No messages neither from Nico nor from Annabeth, which was as disappointing as it was relieving.

He sat on the table’s chair, looking intently at his mom. “Mom, what’s a gift you really liked?”

She looked at him, surprised. Then, she let out a brief laugh. “I don’t know, Percy, there would be so many…” she pondered, looking out the window to think.

“Come on, there has to be something,” he pushed on, his legs bouncing under the table. “Something Paul made? Or dad?”

“Well, yes, there’s something…” she started, turning towards the stove again. “Paul once took me to this beautiful place in the city. It wasn’t expensive at all, because he knew we weren’t exactly rich, and I insisted on splitting the bill every time we went on dates.”

“So was it, like, the place?” Percy asked, slightly disappointed.

“No, it wasn’t that,” she replied swiftly, shaking her head. “There was a piano in the hall, and after we finished eating he just stood up and sat at the piano.”

“He can play the piano?” he asked, surprised, before realizing. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay, dear,” his mom replied. “He just started singing this song he had composed for me because he wanted it to be a special occasion. It was before we even exchanged rings, you know. More than ten years ago.”

Percy still didn’t get the point.

“So…” he tried. “Was it the song that did it?”

She laughed again. “Well, kind of…” she continued. “It was a bunch of stuff. Everything was just so thoughtful, and he had this kindness in him. He didn’t care that he was basically showing me off to the world.”

He stared then, thinking.

So, for now, he had thoughtfulness and kindness. He could work with that. Still, he questioned how he could put that into practice.

He couldn’t play the piano, and he couldn’t sing. Maybe just the _20th Century Fox_ jingle, but that didn’t count.

“Do you have something else?” Percy asked again.

“If you tell me what you need, I might be able to help,” she told him then, turning off the stove and looking at him with understanding eyes. “Is this for Annabeth?”

“Yeah…” he hesitated. “But I have to do it by myself, y’know. Would be pretty lame otherwise.”

She smiled kindly, then she nodded. “Know that she appreciates everything you do for her. She knows how much you struggle, but she gets tired too sometimes. Try to work with that.”

He stared at his and Annabeth’s chat. Didn’t she say she was going to work on Monday?

He would’ve had his swimming practice, but he could simply make up some excuse and not participate. She was definitely more important than a few extra credits.

So, Percy smiled. He didn’t know precisely what he needed to do yet but, at least, he had an idea.

“Right,” he spoke, grinning. “Thanks, mom.”

“You’re more than welcome,” his mom replied.

A few minutes after, they were eating one of Percy’s favorite dishes, and everything felt good again. His neurons were still working like bees in a hive to come up with something so special Annabeth would have remembered it even if she would’ve gotten Alzheimer’s.

As he helped his mom clean the table, she stopped him placing her hand on his forearm.

“Stop there, honey,” she commanded. “Paul will be back in half an hour.”

Percy looked at her suddenly. “Can’t I do it?”

She smirked. “Nope. You need to pack. We’re going Montauk for the weekend.”

His eyes widened and lit up with a childish joy he only felt on Christmas morning.

“Deadass?” He asked, knowing fully well she would never play him with something like that.

“Of course,” she laughed. “You deserve it.”

Percy laughed and kissed her on the cheek, basically blasting to his bedroom and emptying his backpack before he could fill it up with a t-shirt, pants, and a boxer swimsuit. His mom did the same, and he helped her gather the stuff they would have needed for the bathroom and kitchen items. Paul came back wearing a straw hat and smiling widely, inviting them directly into his car.

Percy did definitely look like a happy first-grader on his first-ever school trip and it showed. The car trip had consisted of him constantly tapping his feet and hands to the music blasting from the stereo, which he perfectly knew could be pretty annoying if done for more than ten minutes. He kept on going for more than an hour, though, without him realizing. Both Paul and his mom didn’t complain too much, still, probably out of habit. They both tended to just laugh it off, as Percy did.

As they jumped off the car, still a bit of a walk from the bungalow, Percy drowned in the salty smell of the sea breeze and the light from the early afternoon sun, and finally felt alright.

He knew both his mom and stepdad were feeling the same, far from their responsibilities and with two days of nothing but sleeping and relaxing in front of them. Summer was still months away, so the water temperature would have probably been all but pleasant. His mom was already warning him not to think about swimming, to which Paul vehemently disagreed. The bungalow that used to be pretty beat-up was, from a couple of years, back to its original shape. They had finally had enough savings to buy it, and that felt like the biggest accomplishment. Percy had made his contribution too, investing at least half of his summer’s jobs profits into the small house. Every time they had the chance to come back, he could see how his and his parents’ good work had been paid off.

Looking at the pastel-yellow exterior of the bungalow and with his backpack and beach umbrella on his back, they settled inside. His mom allowed him to take a walk on the beach, making him promise to wait for her to go and wet his feet in the water; that was a ritual they always had engaged in together, before Paul came into their lives. That being their own private thing, he would most often leave them alone doing something else, or watch from a distance. Then, he would join them after his mom would call, and the three of them would go for a stroll on the beach.

As Percy quickly headed outside, he excitedly removed his shoes and socks before walking on the bright sand towards the seashore. He stared at the sea for a moment, smelling the fresh air, his eyes restlessly capturing everything around him; the seagulls on the side of the beach, some faraway people to his right, the calm ocean in front of him. If that could have been what he woke up to every day, he would have given everything just to make it happen.

When his mom came, he found him running on the seashore scaring away the birds, which she found particularly funny. They let the waves wet their feet, feeling the ice-cold water all around their ankles. Paul joined in some time later, announcing that the bonfire was ready and that it would have probably been a quiet evening judging by the stillness of the sea. They went for a walk on the beach, and Percy hinted at his plans for Annabeth that Monday. He was practically beaming with happiness when they came back to the bungalow to cook and eat dinner around the fire, his mom talking about how she would have liked to start his own practice, and how Paul was being promoted at work and everything was alright.

Sunlight was still present when he went to sit on the sand closer to the beach, in between some sandhills. He had never felt this motivated in months; if this was the life waiting for him on the other side of his high school diploma, then he was willing to break his bones to escape his small personal hell and finally start working as a lifeguard and become good enough at gaming to try and use it as a source of income. Thinking about that perspective in the future, it seemed so bright he struggled to believe it could even be true. He knew he didn’t need much from life. Doing what he loved and paying his own bills would have been enough. To do that, though, he needed to grit his teeth and keep going. Moving forward was the only way.

His eyes widened when he remembered he hadn’t notified Nico of his missing gaming session. Again.

Shit, he thought, running inside and then towards his backpack on his bed.

Luckily, his mom and Paul were both too busy chatting to bother asking what he was doing.

He returned to the same spot and sat down on the sand again, unlocking his phone and opening his and Nico’s WhatsApp chat.

Luckily, he supposedly hadn’t noticed Percy not being online or he had just assumed he wouldn’t have been online at that hour. It was still relatively early in the evening, so it was understandable.

Percy typed his message. He stopped halfway through, though, re-reading their chat and cringing at his own replies.

He had been his usual impulsive self, he could see that. To an external eye that may have not been the worst conversation but, for him, knowing how private and aloof Nico could be, he knew he had said all the wrong things. Anxiety started building up inside of him without a reason, and Percy hated every single second of it.

He thought back at his promise to himself that morning: he had to make things right. Goals needed to be clear in his mind for him to accomplish them. And he wanted Nico to be his friend. That, he was sure about.

The first step was to address what he could now, in his right state of mind, and then hope Nico would understand how the person that he had talked with the night before had not been Percy; it was someone he needed to forget about.

He deleted his initial message and started writing again. _Hey man_

He sent that before continuing. _Honestly, I’m sorry about yesterday. I wasn’t in my right mind, you know, I wouldn’t have said certain stuff had I been sober. I swear I’ll make sure to stay away from my phone next time_

Percy stared at his own message, the two checks appearing on its side. _Hope I didn’t make you too uncomfortable_

Satisfied with his apology, he locked his phone with a kind of nervousness still sitting heavy on his chest. Looking at the sea in front of him and listening to the sound of the waves did help his self-soothing, so he closed his eyes and laid back on the sandy ground.

After what seemed like a few minutes of dozing, he woke up the sound of his notifications going off. He grunted as he took out the phone from his pocket and sat back up again.

Nico had answered.

_don’t sweat it. I get it, you being high and all. I’m used to people asking me weird questions._

Percy tried to think about a smart answer. He kept on forgetting to never think too much about what he wanted to say. _Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have done that. That sucks, though_

_yeah, kind of. I’m a weird person anyway, I guess._

Percy didn’t think Nico was particularly weird. He was edgy. But, like, a cool-edgy. _I wouldn’t say you’re actually weird_

_whatever you wanna call it, that’s another reason why I don’t go out._

Percy remembered the whole I-don’t-go-out issue.

He was pleasantly surprised by Nico spontaneously bringing up the subject again. _Because people ask questions?_

_kind of. I don’t like people in general and they don’t like me, so at some point I figured I’d better stay inside._

_anyway, you on tonight?_

He still felt bad typing back his answer. _Actually I’m with my parents at the beach. My mom decided to just take us here because I might pass this school year with some decent grades. So yeah, that was unexpected_

_I get it._

Chatting with him was starting to feel nice again. He kept going. _You ever been in Montauk?_

Nico took a bit more to answer that.

_I’ve actually never been to the beach._

Percy’s eyes widened. He let out a small laugh. _You can’t be serious._

He typed again, unsatisfied with the rudeness of that last message. _I mean, you ever been on vacation in Italy? Isn’t it full of beaches there?_

_jeez, I said I’ve never been to the beach, not that I’ve never seen the sea. it’s no big deal._

_my family’s from Venice, so I know what the sea looks like. I just never went to the beach. like, sand and everything_

That “sand and everything” was still one of the best places in the world in Percy’s mind, so he was really struggling to believe that it wasn’t a big deal.

He started feeling bad for him. _Man, you have no idea what you’re missing_

_guess so._

Okay, that might have not been the best statement for someone who clearly couldn’t do anything about the fact that they had not yet been to a beach in their fifteen years of life while being homeschooled, and probably having not many real-life friends.

Percy let his altruistic instincts take over for once. _Would you want to be at the beach though?_

_I mean, yeah. I guess. seems nice._

Percy thought, looking at the sky above him and squinting his eyes.

So, technically, bringing Nico to the beach would have been excessively weird. Percy was not his babysitter and the guy probably didn’t want to be babysat by him. And it wasn’t like he could force the kid to go to a beach. He had promised Nico he would have been online the whole weekend, and he had involuntarily broken the promise. He knew he had to work hard and game as much as he could if he wished for them to actually achieve something.

He was still feeling bad, though, and he was definitely not going to sit there and enjoy the view now, knowing the other was just closed in his own room, playing in silence.

Unless… _Well, you want to see the beach?_

Their chat remained still.

_what?_

Percy smirked.

He hit the small camera icon on the side of Nico’s name bar without a second thought.

After a couple of rings, the video-call screen disappeared.

Nico had hung up on him.

Sure, Percy had expected that. _Come onnnnn, I swear it’s worth it. You can’t live without seeing this_

_are you high again or what?_

Percy chuckled. _What_

_I’m serious._

It had become a personal challenge he had to win, by this point. _When are you not? Come on. It’d just be a minute_

He tried calling again. Again, Nico ended the call before answering.

_stop._

Percy snorted. _K, fine._

_thanks._

_If it’s for your face, though, you can also turn off the video. There’s the small icon down at the bottom_ , Percy tried, purposefully being annoying.

_thank you, I know how to use a phone. you’re the older one here._

He chuckled. _What’s that supposed to mean?_

And then, he wrote again. _And don’t try to divert the topic, you ghost boy smartass_

_I’m not. I’m telling you I don’t want to, it’s weird._

Percy took that as a personal offense. _Weren’t you the weird one here?_

_why do you even care so much?_

Percy didn’t know. He just felt a slight sting in his gut he wanted to get rid of, and he was determined to go to bed that night with his conscience at peace. _If you’d see this you’d understand_

Their chat was silent again for a small amount of time, and it was enough for Percy to ask himself what the heck he was doing.

He wasn’t the type to be this friendly to someone he barely knew. It might have been because they already talked a lot, both via text and when they played together. Percy didn’t know much about Nico, but he knew he shouldn’t necessarily be feeling like this.

And was Nico even considering Percy a friend by this point?

_I swear if this is just some of your idiot stuff I’m hanging up right away._

Percy’s thoughts were completely taken away when he had finished reading. Despite the fact he had no idea what Nico meant with “idiot stuff”, he grinned as he tried calling again, switching to the external camera and staring at the screen.

A couple seconds later, Nico accepted the call.

The screen was close to black for a second before Nico’s video was deactivated. But, before that, it looked like the only source of lighting from what Percy assumed was Nico’s bedroom was some blue lights above Nico’s head on the wall behind him. He had promised himself to be a decent human being and try not to peek at the other’s face before he had the time to deactivate his camera; needless to say, it had been a useless promise. He quickly scanned the screen in front of him, and apart from the shadows surrounding him, he could clearly see a mass of messy, dark hair that covered one of Nico’s eyebrows, falling in front of one of his eyes. Percy couldn’t really distinguish anything else apart from, maybe, the dark color of his eyes, which were sunk into the shadows around his eye sockets. And were those dark circles?

Percy stayed still trying to ignore the image, framing most of the landscape in front of him in the camera of his phone. Not the best quality, so he was not fully satisfied. Still, he was waiting for Nico to say something and was staring at Nico’s blurred figure on the screen.

“What do you think?” Percy asked, like an excited kid waiting for their mom to compliment their new drawing.

Silence from the other line until he heard Nico chuckle.

“Not bad,” he replied dismissively. “Is this it?”

“Absolutely not,” Percy announced, getting up from the sand and walking towards the beach. “You haven’t seen nothing yet.”

“I actually think I have,” Nico replied wittily.

“Son, be a little more enthusiastic, will you?” Percy joked, switching to the internal camera because he didn’t want to spoil the view of the whole length of the seashore at sunset just yet.

“I’m just honest…” Nico started, before cutting himself off. “Oh.”

Percy looked at the screen, raising it enough to look at the camera. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” was Nico’s rushed reply.

“Wait, here it is,” Percy raised his phone again, switching to the external camera again with his feet in the water.

Outside of the camera, he could see the clear waves pushing softly on the yellow sand beside him, wetting his feet and ankles intermittently. On his left, there was the sun, coloring the water orange and the clouds red and the darkest shades of pink.

“Man, this is like, my favorite place ever,” he stated then, before realizing Nico had been quiet on the other side of the line. “Why do I feel like you’re silently judging me?”

“I’m always silently judging. But this,” Nico finally talked, and Percy noticed his tone soften. “I mean, yeah, it’s… pretty.”

Percy considered that a win. He grinned. “Right? And you can’t even see it three-sixty.”

Nico chuckled again.

“I still prefer the mountains,” he admitted, and Percy knew he was just trying to have the last word. “Sand is probably uncomfortable.”

“You literally know nothing about sand,” Percy bit back, turning around and capturing the other side of the beach.

“Percy?” His mom called from a distance. “Come here and help us clean up.”

“Be right there,” he replied, turning away from the phone.

“Was that your mom?” Nico asked.

“Yeah, I have to go get things ready for the night,” he replied as he switched to the internal camera again, already turning towards the bungalow. “Sometimes we find spiders in the covers and stuff, so yeah, I have to clean up before laying down.”

“So you have what, a house on the beach?” Nico questioned again, and Percy thought about how he had never heard him ask this many questions.

“It’s actually a bungalow,” Percy replied, looking into the camera and burying his free hand in his pocket. “Small house, you know. The kind poor people rent for vacation.”

“I know what a bungalow is,” the other replied, annoyed.

“Okay, rich kid,” he smirked, starting to climb up the hill again towards the small house. “Just to be sure, I’m not going to be on Monday either. I have something to take care of.”

“Fine,” Nico sighed. “Don’t even try to make me do more than half of the work on Tuesday, though. I’m not gonna lose because of you.”

And back he was again, talking like a college professor.

“Don’t stress about it too much,” Percy stopped before the entrance of the bungalow, looking inside the camera. “I swear I’m gonna be the greatest little soldier.”

“Kissing my ass won’t make us win those battle passes,” Nico stated, sounding annoyed. Percy heard something creak on the other line. “I’m gonna go have a couple matches now.”

“Sure, I’m gonna head inside and take care of the spiders,” Percy announced, already looking at his mom going back and forth from the small kitchen to their bedroom. “Speak soon.”

“Sure,” Nico replied before ending the call.

His blurred image soon disappeared from Percy’s screen.

He could consider himself satisfied. Praising himself for the nice work before, he heard his mom calling him again, urging him to come and help with the bed covers. Percy rushed inside, the corners of his mouth still turned up, and took care of both the dishes and the making of his own bed before them three were off again outside, both his mom and Paul explaining how to orient himself at sea. He obviously knew already; his dad had already told him everything he needed to know. But it still was nice being there under the stars, his family and him. He was sure Tyson would have loved the atmosphere; Annabeth would have adored it too.

He smiled, thinking about the day after and about Monday. He could surely manage to make Annabeth forgive him, and he had nothing to worry about anymore. But it was just in some moments like these that he actually realized how much he could miss her, in one way or another. It’s not like he didn’t think about her: on the contrary, there were thousands of things that reminded Percy of her every time.

It was just very easy for his brain to come up with more topics to think about apart from her.

He went to sleep that night listening to the wind push the waves onto the seashore, sleeping soundly until his mom woke him up the late morning after.

They did what they usually did: walks on the beach, a small trip to the nearest conglomerate of buildings near Montauk Beach to buy some food for lunch and dinner that night, feeding the birds and building sandcastles on the beach – because why not.

Until, the time came to head back home. Both his mom and Paul would’ve had to work the morning after, and he was “definitely not skipping school now” as his mom stated. So, he didn’t even try to argue as they were loading the car. After saying goodbye to the beach and the sea, they all jumped in the car and headed home, Percy staring at the back window of the car at the horizon, bidding it farewell in his own mind.

He also probably had those sad puppy eyes when his mom commanded him to please take out his English book from his backpack to review what he was already supposed to know from having studied on Friday. To his unpleasant surprise and dejection, he remembered less than half of what he had already viewed. As usual, he thought, exasperated, grumbling and laying his head on the backseat.

Getting back home and having to think about the day after was one of the most burdensome activities of the whole year. He had to plan, which, honestly, had never been his forte. He was voluntarily not asking for any help because it was something that had to come from his own badly-wired brain when it came to Annabeth. Finally, after at least twenty minutes of reasoning and brainstorming for ideas alone, he did come up with a plan. He confirmed what he already remembered asking innocent questions about Annabeth’s work shift the day after, hoping that hadn’t been too suspicious.

He went to bed with something swirling in his gut, smirking and mentally patting himself on the shoulder for taking the time to think about how to be a more decent person.

Monday morning came, and it was one of the few times in which his mom didn’t have to drag him out of bed. Percy had a list of things to complete before relaxing, and first on that list was acing his classes for the day and talk to his swimming teacher warning him of his absence to that day’s practice.

Exiting school grounds, he directed himself to the nearest convenience store and bought everything he would have needed for dinner in a rush, so much that some dude was looking at him weirdly as he speeded through the isles and then towards the line at the cashier.

He didn’t particularly care. People liked to stare, and he usually didn’t bother blending in the background. It was pretty difficult when he tended to be the noisiest person in the room. Needless to say, he didn’t exactly fit in libraries and libraries weren’t interested in fitting him. Those seemed to be Annabeth’s favorite place to be in though, considering how much she enjoyed silence and reading.

Percy still wondered how the hell they ended up together, but he was all but complaining about them dating for two years.

Coming back home, he basically threw his backpack on the floor and his shopping bags on the counter, extracting their contents and observing every one of them, praying to not have forgotten anything.

He obviously did forget the carrots and some extra salt just to be sure, but everything was still doable. His list was still sitting in his pocket, and he took it out to read it again and pinning it on the magnetic whiteboard on the fridge.

So, the meat stew wasn’t too difficult of a dish, but he definitely had to move his ass if he wanted to have it done before six in the evening. He eyed the clock: 3:34 P.M.

He rolled back his sleeves and started chopping the onions as the first thing. After just five minutes, he was already not paying attention to what he was doing anymore, which he could not allow. Music had always been something that would either help him get his head in the clouds or ground him to the present and make everything less boring. He swiftly took out his phone and, placing it on the kitchen table, blasted some hip hop while getting back to work.

Pans and pots had always been complicated for him, so he ended up cooking the roasted vegetables in a baking pan that was clearly too small for all the brussels sprouts, pecans, and cranberries, but at least the fact that he had only one carrot in the fridge had made it less bad than it should have been. Regarding the mashed potatoes, he had cooked them before for himself and had seen Annabeth making them too, but he had no idea of how many ingredients were actually involved in the original dish. Now, he wasn’t some gourmet cook, but he at least had some sense of how much salt and pepper he needed to put into the bowl. Also, he continuously checked for the various steps on various internet pages. He did skip some passages, just because he already knew what to do and what had the chance to taste good. In the meanwhile, he was still waiting for the beef to brown in the pan while cooking it probably ten times slower than it should have been because he was petrified by the thought of burning the main course. He caught himself dancing more than a couple times and jamming his kitchen utensils on the cooking stove, but he at least managed to come back to his senses soon enough to stop.

He remembered the look on Annabeth’s face when she had spent her Thanksgiving with them, a couple years prior. She was a fan of potatoes for sure, and she did like some light vegetables on the side; she basically devoured every vegetable present on the table, apart from the stuffed tomatoes. Percy had also remembered something that she had said to him some evenings before, regarding the fact that she would have liked to go completely vegetarian, but she still couldn’t give up on the stewed meat dish made by her dad. That had been the lightbulb that made all the others follow. About the dessert, he couldn’t quite place the day and time (probably around Christmas time), his mom and Paul had once gone on a baking spree, cooking all kinds of cakes. Percy had noticed her eyes lit up when she first tasted Paul’s pumpkin pie. So, he had asked his mom to please bring a couple pieces back from the shop or, literally, anywhere else she could find it.

He plated up the mashed potatoes, the roasted vegetables, and, lastly, the stewed meat. He tasted every one of them to be sure, approving of the flavors in his mouth and concluding he had done a decent, if not good, job. He covered everything up with wrap and threw everything in the oven to keep them warm. He would’ve thought about them later.

Gazing at the clock on the wall, he eyed the time: 5:40 P.M.

The kitchen was a complete mess, and he had less than twenty minutes to clean up and then jump in the car his mom had gladly landed him just for this special occasion. But, apart from that, he still needed to prep the bathroom.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, cursing his poor organizational skills.

Well, he thought. Priorities are priorities.

He ran to the bathroom, plugging the sink of the bathtub and turning on hot water. He searched for the salts and the candles his mom had told him were resting in some cupboards on the side of the mirror, mixing the water and soap with the salts. Smelling them out of curiosity he frowned, expecting some kind of nice fragrance. Honestly, he had no idea what he was expecting, but they basically smelled like… salt. The one he had just used to cook. He didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing, and he had no idea why people enjoyed baths anyways, so he just assumed what his mom suggested to be true.

He lit the candles and carefully placed them around the tub, careful to create a kind of harmony that was pleasing to the eye. Or, at least, his eye. He obviously checked in and out the bathroom for everything to be sparkling clean or, if not, at least where it should be. Placing his small Bluetooth speaker on the small shelf beneath the mirror, he eyed the clock again: 5:55 P.M.

Perfect.

He practically ran to the car, making sure to chain his house keys to his pants in the process. He jumped in and started heading towards the food place Annabeth worked at. It should’ve been a fifteen-minute drive, but Percy was sure he could make it there in ten driving less safely than he should’ve been.

And, he honestly could pick literally every excuse to push onto the gas pedal in the car because he genuinely couldn’t help it.

Arrived in front of Annabeth’s workplace, he turned off the car and simply waited.

Sunset was already approaching, and the streets were still relatively quiet except from the usual honking and motor sounds from the usual Manhattan traffic jam.

He paced back and forth on the sidewalk, wishing and praying for Annabeth to not be neither late nor still too angry to even come with him.

The possibilities could be many, he thought. She could still be, righteously so, pissed at his stupid mistake and not exactly excited to see him. Also, she could be too tired to even enjoy the evening like he would have liked her to. She could have ended her shift early, or she could be working extra hours, which was improbable considering she had just confirmed her schedule the evening before and she definitely wasn’t one to change plans.

Still, Percy could feel a knot at the tip of his stomach.

There was, then, the worst possibility of all: that all of that couldn’t convince her that he was sorry. Like really, truly sorry for never following people’s advice and being a lazy organizer and fucking up her schedule knowing fully well how much work she was putting in her future and still managed to put in their relationship.

Fuck, she really cared about him.

How many people would sign up for being a dense, hyperactive, sometimes annoying, and underachieving guy’s girlfriend? Definitely not many.

But she did. He couldn’t envision a future in which he could be as lucky as to find another intelligent, patient, quick, beautiful girl like her to be with him. People tended to get tired of him very quickly.

“Percy?” a surprised voice came from behind him.

He spun around to be met with Annabeth’s gray eyes and her messy blonde ponytail.

She was still wearing her red-and-white working clothes, but Percy didn’t remember her being so gorgeous. Something dropped in his guts at the sight.

He smiled.

“Hey,” he started, unsure of what to say to try and sound persuading. “How are you?”

She seemed still a bit taken aback from the whole situation. “I’m good, yes…” she frowned and shook her head, a few honey locks falling to the side of her face. “Okay, sorry, but what are you doing here? Did something happen?”

“No, no,” Percy hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “I came to pick you up. I actually got a surprise for you. You wanna come and see it?”

_Please?_

She looked at him up and down, and her gaze softened. “I have study to do at home, I don’t think I should…”

“Just this evening,” he joined his hands together, interrupting her. “I’ll bring you home after dinner, I promise. It’s… kind of important.” He tried, giving her a half-smile.

Please, he thought again. Let me make this right.

He could almost see the thoughts in her head spinning in front of her eyes, probably times and dates coming together while she evaluated if she could allow herself some time to dedicate to her idiot boyfriend and his unplanned requests.

She sighed. “Is it far from here?”

Percy beamed internally.

“It’s closer than you think,” he grinned, taking her hand and directing her towards the car. He opened the door for her less because of courteousness and more because he was seriously dying to show her what he had managed to accomplish for her.

“I’ll have to tell my dad,” she started, putting on her seatbelt.

“I’ll do it,” Percy chimed, pushing on the gas pedal and heading towards his house. He looked at her. “From this moment on, the game is that you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

She looked at him then, and a corner of her mouth went up. “Alright. But keep your eyes on the road, dumbass,” she chuckled.

Percy did as told, and started talking about her day at work. He listened to her trying not to interrupt her too much, and making sure he was only stopping her monologue for the right reasons because he knew how much it frustrated her. He didn’t always manage but, at least, he felt she had appreciated the effort.

As they were about to enter his apartment, Annabeth stopped in front of the door and smelled the air.

“Do you smell this?” she asked, frowning and looking around. “It smells like meat stew.”

Percy smirked, looking at her. He quickly hid his expression while searching for his keys. “You say? I don’t smell anything.”

She hummed. “I’m probably hallucinating from tiredness. Amazing.”

Percy just chuckled and opened the door for her. She went inside and stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she looked at the kitchen to her left and the mess of vegetable peelings, pots, and pans on the counter and on the wooden table in front of it.

She turned to him, her mouth half-opened, and her eyes confused. “You didn’t just cook everything by yourself, did you?”

“I’m afraid I did,” Percy admitted, raising his shoulders. “But that’s not for now.”

He held his hand out to her, and she looked stunned before she placed her own tapered hands in his.

Percy smiled as he led her through the corridor and then to the bathroom. “First, there’s this,” he stated before opening the door in a theatrical gesture, showing her the inside.

A nice vanilla scent lingered in the air, and the steam was starting to cover the mirror. The candles were still burning at the base of the bathtub, and the grey rug laid perfect on its side. Percy would have liked to look at this with Annabeth’s eyes to see if it was as equally pleasing as it was in his own eyes.

“You…” Annabeth started, her eyes scanning the room. Percy could tell that behind her usually serious face there was now something more pleasant lurking under her surface. “You did this on your own? Seriously?”

Percy grinned widely, both because of her smiling and his own pride. “Sure. You didn’t think I could?”

“No! It’s really not that…” she rushed to answer, getting close to him and looking at him in the eyes. She quickly diverted her gaze, and Percy could tell she was thinking about what to say. Or how to say it. “I mean, it must have been time-consuming, and you have to study and be at your swimming practice, and you’ve been outside for the weekend, so…”

“I’m just full of surprises,” he spoke then, amazed yet again by the fact that she had memorized all of his weekly schedules when he couldn’t even remember what he had eaten for breakfast.

She looked at him then, her eyes looking at him like she had never seen him before. The corners of her mouth turned up, and she basically jumped to his neck before kissing him. She smelled like donuts and fried churros from work, and her hair was all over the place as he cupped her face with one hand and held her tight by her waist with the other.

After a couple of minutes, Percy closed the door behind her to not let the room cool too quickly, hearing her getting into the tub and hoping she’d stay there long enough for him to set what he had in mind.

He quickly walked towards the kitchen, gathering the already-made food on the table before opening one of the drawers in the kitchen, taking out a big, yellow tablecloth. After that, he searched the room for a couple of wine glasses, silverware, some white porcelain plates, and two red-cloth tissues. He mentally thanked his mom for having left some white wine in the fridge from the night before and took that too in a basket before heading upstairs.

They had been so lucky as to choose a building that was not too tall, but tall enough to have some kind of view on Manhattan’s skyline and the close Queensboro bridge. Going towards the part of the roof looking south-east, you could see the end of Queensboro bridge just as it touched Roosevelt Island. Turning around, you could also see the outline of the city, even though at least half of the landscape was still covered by the taller buildings surrounding the area. There, technically, was also a ban for rooftop hang-outs, but their landlord had been kind enough to always “forget” to lock the access to the top of the building and turn the other cheek. Percy had never caused trouble anyway, and he doubted the other people living there were interested in having the roof closed off and give up on their barbeque family parties.

As he placed the stuff on the floor, he came back downstairs to take the folding table Paul had left for him near the entrance, placing it where he thought the view was best. He set the table as best as he could, remembering his mom trying to teach him those bon ton rules about where things should be on the table that Percy still thought ridiculously useless. For Annabeth, though, he would have been willing to learn a whole good-manners book.

After doing a satisfying enough work with the table, he waited for Annabeth to finish her bath before bringing the food upstairs. He didn’t want to risk it going cold.

Sitting on one of the two chairs remaining, he waited for her while playing on his phone and obsessively checking the temperature of the food under the aluminum foil.

As he heard the door open and the jazz music from the small speaker stop, he almost jumped from his chair. He could see Annabeth with a towel wrapped around her body and another one twisted on her head that just looked at him, a bit lost.

“Um…” she started, smiling awkwardly. And Percy had to really focus on what she was saying, because more than half of his brain resources were now focused on her red cheeks and wet shoulders. “Do you still have that shirt I left here a month ago?”

Percy stood up, burying his phone in his pocket. “I have something better,” he stated, and he went straight for his bedroom.

Annabeth’s clothes were all gathered in a single spot on the side of one of his drawers. He remembered seeing a blue dress Annabeth had left there sometime before when she had crushed in his room after going out in some Thai restaurant. He walked out with the dress in one hand, a pair of his mother’s socks in the other, looking at her waiting in the corridor and smiling.

She took one look at the dress and smiled too. “Thank you,” she stated, kissing him on the cheek with excitement that reminded Percy of their first dates years prior.

When she came out of the bathroom, the word “stunning” stuck inside Percy’s brain as an understatement. Annabeth walked towards him, placing a lock of her hair behind her ear. Her white sneakers looked weirdly good under the green, sheath dress, her hair falling down on her chest in now dry, wavy curls. She wasn’t wearing any make-up whatsoever, but that made Percy lose his mind even more because her eyes had never been brighter. 

As she walked towards him, hair bouncing and him basically keeping his jaw from dropping, she spun around smiling. “Is this okay?”

Percy just sat still for a few moments, taking in the view and wishing that moment would last forever. “Let’s just say…” he started, voice soft. “It’s a good thing I don’t have to concentrate on anything else apart from you.”

She smiled, blushing lightly and covering her face for a brief second before going back to her usual, confident self.

Percy was almost entranced by it all and almost forgot what he still had to show her. His eyes lit up then, regaining alertness.

“Oh, right,” he spoke, taking her hand and leading her towards the door. “You still have to see something.”

“We’re not going out, are we?” She asked, already knowing the answer.

“We kind of are,” he stated then, looking at her as he jumped inside the elevator and pushed the button for the last floor.

He looked at her, and she scanned him with her grey eyes.

The look on her face when she realized made him grin widely.

“Don’t tell me we’re having a rooftop dinner,” she questioned, her eyes incredulous.

Percy grinned. “Okay, I won’t tell,” he agreed, glancing at her sideways, observing her smile growing wider. She punched him just slightly on the shoulder, laughing and then getting a hold of herself again.

She was always so controlled and it showed when, even in times like that, when she was met with Percy’s efforts to make her day better and show how much he cared about her, her only reaction was a genuine, whole-hearted smile – albeit a really gorgeous one, in Percy’s eyes.

Despite that, as they sat down at the table, Percy could almost see her face beaming with gratitude, and he realized just how few times he had seen her like that.

She was always doing, both for herself and other people: watching her smaller brothers when her dad was away, working day and night to ensure herself some financial independence, growing up probably already thinking about when she’ll become the greatest architect and inventor alive.

And, instead, Percy realized how much he just loved her for who she was. She could’ve ended up downtown asking for money next to a McDonalds and he wouldn’t have cared less.

Sometimes, though, he wondered how much of that reasoning was shared by her.

That thought terrorized him beyond belief, but he had no intention of admitting that to himself.

“Percy…” Annabeth started, softly, pulling him out of his head. She was looking down at her stew, and had stopped eating for a moment. “I have no idea if I’ve already told you I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t,” Percy started as he quickly swallowed a piece of potato. He was lucky he didn’t choke. “I’m the one who should apologize. You don’t have to say or do anything. It was my mistake, and I didn’t even find a way to fix it, in the end.”

“You did,” she spoke, looking directly at him and placing her chin on her hand. “I don’t know what to say about this whole thing. You tried so hard, but I already know you care about me… it’s just…”

“I told you, there’s no need,” Percy interrupted, already worrying about what may follow.

“Let me finish,” she commanded, somehow sweetly than many other times. “I know you care. I do love you, you know how much I do. I wouldn’t have cared so much about helping you study, and I would’ve never accepted going out with you more than one time.”

“I was so lucky,” he stated, and then swiftly covered his mouth. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she gave him a side-smile, turning to look at the edge of the rooftop. “It’s just… Percy, I don’t need all this,” she started, and then shook her head before turning towards him. “I mean, it’s really nice. I would like to spend every day like this, you know? But I don’t need this to know that you care. I know you well enough to understand that you were sorry as soon as I hung up on you that time.”

Percy frowned, then. “So…” he tried, and Annabeth stopped him.

“This to say, I already forgave you. I just needed some time for myself, to think about where we should go from here,” she continued, and something in Percy’s guts twisted. Somehow, he wasn’t hungry anymore.

She evidently had noticed Percy’s troubled face, because she put her hands up in front of her face and started shaking her head, eyes wide. “No, Percy, not like that!”

“Jesus Christ…” Percy sighed heavily before putting a hand on his chest, feeling his own heartbeat slow down.

“You dumbass,” she muttered, and her mouth twitched to the side. “I meant, I don’t want to make this heavy for you. You know I won’t stay here, and you know I don’t want to. I know I want to keep what we have, though, and I thought I could make it work anyway because I care so much about you, but…”

She stopped, diverting her gaze to her food. Percy just stared, holding himself back. One of his legs was still bouncing beneath the table.

“I don’t want to force you into something that might be too difficult,” she finally stated, hesitant still. “Seeing me only through a screen, not having the occasion to hang out anymore. I won’t even get to help you study since you decided not to apply for college.”

“I’ll make it work,” Percy rushed to say, interrupting for a reason this time. “I know I want to, y’know? There’s no question about it. I can manage everything if I put my mind onto it.”

“But that’s the point,” she stopped him, looking at him sweetly. “You don’t have to put your mind onto it. It should come as naturally as possible, and I don’t want to put this weight on you of having to call me every day, having to memorize my schedule, organizing your holidays so that we can spend as much time together as we can. Maybe it’s just a bit too much…”

“I’m telling you, it’s not,” Percy spoke without thinking, because that’s how easy this decision was for him. There was no way he was going to give up on the absolute gem that was her. “You shouldn’t even worry about it. Once I’ll get used to it, it’ll come as natural as swimming for me.”

She stared at him, lips pressed together and her eyes scrutinizing him. A corner of her mouth turned upwards, she nodded.

Percy knew she wasn’t convinced. “If I’ll have to lose you someday, it’ll not be because of me,” he said.

Letting those words finally come out felt like a prophecy.

He saw her expression change from worried to determined and loving. “I already know it won’t,” she replied, holding the fork in her hand and regaining eating. “Eat now, love, I really don’t want this to get cold.”

Percy grinned then for the first time since the beginning of that conversation, watching her enjoy her food.

And Percy thought that there could never be something that would ever make him feel as at peace and as happy as knowing that she loved him.

As they finished eating what they had managed to bring upstairs, Percy instructed her to make her way downstairs while he gathered what he could for the first trip downstairs. She wouldn’t move, though, insisting she’d help him for all the work and heart he had put in preparing the food and basically everything else. When she started to get bossy, Percy had to comply. Going back downstairs, it was his mom to open the door. She was supposed to arrive before they would’ve finished their dinner, bringing home that pumpkin pie Percy had asked for and that Annabeth loved so much. Her and his mom were both so happy to see each other, and Annabeth seemed even happier to finally get to taste his mom’s shop’s pie.

While Percy left them chatting, he commanded his mom to sit at the dining table while he cleaned up the mess he did in the kitchen, after he gathered everything left on the rooftop. That gave him the occasion to think about what Annabeth had said. He had always had this bad habit of blurting out stuff only based on his feelings, and never based on rationality. The reason for that was pretty obvious, but it still didn’t fail to irritate him (and the authorities he had to deal with from time to time). The fact that Annabeth didn’t consider him determined enough to keep what they had even if she were to leave was difficult to wrap his head around. He thought he had already shown her everything she needed to consider him all in for the ride; didn’t matter where she was, he would always be with her. Even if that meant not seeing her for six months in a row. That conversation, though, had been the sign that he hadn’t made it obvious enough for her.

And that bothered him a lot. He would have liked to give her any kind of special treatment, every day, all day, but that just wasn’t possible. He thought that as the only way with which he could make explicit what he felt for her every day. What his next move would’ve been, though, he had no idea.

He just really needed her to believe in him and what he could handle.

After he had finished with the plates, he knew his plan would have been to take Annabeth out for a drink. But, seeing how tired she was, yawning even when chatting with his mom, he just couldn’t bring himself to ask her to stick to his plan.

He smiled at her as he got closer to her chair, caressing her hair and allowing her to take one of his hands into hers, squeezing it lightly. After that, he offered to take her home. She gladly accepted, lamenting the fact that she would have really liked to stay the night if only she wouldn’t have had to watch her siblings that night.

So, Percy hopped with her in the car after he had gathered her stuff, and drove her home, listening to music from the stereo and talking sleepily about nothing in particular. He dropped her off, kissed her goodbye (way more than once so that she’d get the point), and headed back home, thinking about everything else apart from her soon departure.

He had never liked dramatic or too emotionally-charged media, and he was just not starting to get why.

Going to sleep that night and coming back home from his average school the day after, he felt like the only thing that could make his day a bit better would have been to win what he had been preparing for all these weeks: that three-hour NuOlympus event.

After trying to study for the whole afternoon, at 6 P.M. he was already in front of his computer, waiting for Nico to connect and start playing right away.

Percy's phone vibrated as soon as his alarm for 6 P.M. went off.

_u there already?_

Percy smirked, closing the book in front of him and getting a hold of his controller. _Ready as I'll ever be_

_you better._

After that, they started playing.

Percy had only experienced matches this intense when playing in Jason's team in a _Call Of Duty_ event years earlier. And the stakes hadn't even been so high then.

Nico had made it somewhat clear that they not just wanted, but _needed_ those battle passes and special items in those locked rooms for something he didn’t want to explain yet, but Percy knew they had to win at least three of them. That meant they had to gather as many kills as possible, trying to stay ahead with their kill count and win while still being kill leaders of the matches. Or, at least one of them.

That had been hell, to say the least. They only had three hours to make it and, by the second hour, they only had one.

Luckily, they both noticed that, after the second hour, the players had started to seem less and less experienced. Probably because the very good players had already gathered whatever they needed to obtain out of the event and had just left.

So, the last three to four matches had been easy enough for them to gather three other battle passes, many drachmae, and a good quantity of gems.

As their last match ended with them in the first place, Percy basically cheered right into his microphone, hearing Nico complain about him yelling in his ears, but not really being angry at him.

Pride was definitely something that Percy prized as his treasure, and he knew the feeling of having accomplished something would have stayed with him for at least a week.

After the event finished, he finally disconnected from the game, hand still vibrating with excitement. He had dinner relatively late, hugging his mom on the couch as soon as he escaped his room. He knew both Paul and his mom wouldn't have understood why he was so happy and hyped about winning some game items, but he didn’t care.

He ate his dinner and had some cake on the side as a reward for himself before he heard his phone vibrate in his pocket.

With a handful of frosting still in his mouth, he took it out to read the text. It was Nico.

_I told you Poseidon would be a good match for you_

Percy's mouth corner turned up. Oh, he knew. _Congratulations to you too_

_thanks_

He took another bite out of the blue-and-white cake before typing again. _Now can u tell me why you needed those battle passes so bad anyway?_

_you might have to wait for that. I still have to decide on something_

Those cryptic replies were starting to frustrate him and his natural curiosity. _Come on don’t leave me hanging. You know I hate it_

_it's long anyway_

Percy was getting sick and tired of praying for some information. _I'm gonna keep those battle passes if u don't tell_

_jeez, do you even know what patience is?_

For the record, Percy did know. And he didn’t like the meaning.

Still, he knew he could have been very convincing (which included being extremely obnoxious) if only Nico were to be in front of him. He was a master in extracting information from unwilling people. Messaging wasn't the exact same, though. He couldn't press on really well.

So, he took one last bite from the cake and placed it in the fridge.

He glanced at his mom and Paul still on the sofa, intent in watching some old James Bond movie.

“Be back in a minute,” Percy called, making both their heads turn to him.

“Percy, it's 10 P.M.,” his mom started, looking at her watch. “Where are you going?”

“On the roof,” he explained, sliding into his shoes. “Just a quick call.”

His mom and stepdad looked at each other with a perplexed look on his face, and soon he was out the door and walking towards the elevator.

He wrote again in his and Nico's chat. _I do, it's just not one of my virtues you know_

And again. _Are you going to celebrate or something or you need me to help you with that?_

As the elevator stopped on the last floor and he walked out, he opened the door to the roof.

Fresh air and Manhattan's skyline hit him as he walked towards the border of the building.

_the hell are you talking about?_

Percy smirked. _Have you ever seen the Queensboro bridge at night?_

_is this another excuse to call?_

He stopped near the railing. _Not an excuse, I just want you to celebrate_

Which was true, for the most part.

There was also the part where he needed to convince Nico to give him some more information to avoid feeling like he was not worthy of receiving them, uselessly playing Nico's game without asking any questions.

_I'm doing fine on my own, thanks_

Percy wasn't convinced. _Are you really?_

_really. why should I lie?_

Maybe because you're too full of pride to admit that you would like some friends around and I'm the only one that seems to see behind that? Percy thought. Apart from that, though, no reason came to his mind. _Idk, you tell me, ghost boy_

_I'm saying this for the tenth time already but you're annoying._

Percy chuckled. _Tell me something I don’t know_

He wrote again. _So u wanna see the bridge or not? You might actually like the view_

He waited for Nico to answer, walking towards the southern side of the building, where both the bridge and some of Brooklyn's skyline were visible in the night sky. Smiling, he took in one of his favorite views.

_you got nothing better to do?_

Percy rolled his eyes. _Come on, did I disappoint last time?_

He waited again.

_it better be good._

Percy grinned again. He hit the video-call icon and switched to the external camera like he already did that weekend in Montauk.

Yet again, Nico’s camera managed to catch what Percy thought was ha head full of black, messy hair in front of the back of a tall, dark leather chair with a small cushion on top. The fact that the top of Nico’s head didn’t reach the cushion at the top was pretty noticeable to his eyes, and he took that as a sign that the guy was with all probability shorter than him. The camera seemed to be tilted upwards anyway, so Percy couldn’t see anything below Nico’s nose bridge; it was cool for him anyway.

He stared at the blurred screen as he slightly smirked, raising his phone camera up, turning around slowly and making sure that Nico could see everything in his line of sight.

The bridge was lightened up against the dark sky, tinted a deep blue and with no stars visible, to Percy’s disappointment. The east part of the Queensboro bridge shone with its thousands of lights directly in front of him, and the sight mixed with its reflection on the water beneath was stunning, to say the least. Percy absolutely loved city landscapes paired with stretches of water, and he assumed Nico could find beauty in that too, considering he didn’t apparently spend too much time outside his house.

“That one’s the bridge, and you have Brooklyn on that side, relatively far away. And there you have the Empire State Building and all that,” Percy explained then, filling the silence. “Are you too stunned to talk?”

A low chuckle came from his phone’s speakers. “Not exactly,” replied Nico. “I was just looking. The view is nice.”

Percy sucked in a breath in fake disbelief. “Nice? Man, come on, cheer up.”

“You’re weird, you know?” Nico spoke then, as Percy lowered his phone and switched to his internal camera.

He frowned. “Do you realize it’s pretty ironic that _you_ ’re telling me that?”

“Yeah, no, I mean…” Nico sighed. “You don’t know me. I don’t get why you’re so nice.”

Percy sat on the ground of the rooftop, his back against the railing and his phone in front of him. That sentence didn’t make sense to him. “What you mean, I don’t know you? I do stuff like this for all of my friends,” he explained, raising his eyebrows. “A friend of mine was in the hospital at some point this year and I would, like, bring him my two Nintendos to play while he was bed-bound. I almost slept there once, a nurse had to kick me out for his evening check-up.”

Nico chuckled briefly. “I guess I didn’t know we were friends.”

Percy’s mind stopped in its tracks while thinking about Jason’s surgery and about the fact he hadn’t yet asked how his knees were doing. “Sorry, what?” He asked, before processing Nico’s words. “What’s exactly a friend to you?”

Nico hummed lowly, sitting quietly for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re supped to, like, know a decent amount of information about a person to consider them your friend and not your acquaintance anymore.”

“What’s a decent amount, though?” Percy inquired, observing Nico’s blurred image on the screen, carefully sitting down on the hard floor. “I don’t know everything about my friends. It’s not like I have to marry them.”

“No, I mean,” Nico interrupted, sounding frustrated. “I never even saw you.”

Now it was Percy’s turn to laugh. “Man, I’m like, right here,” he replied, pointing to himself and looking at the camera with a smirk. “I’m the one who never saw you. You know more about me than I know about you. I just know you like ghosts and horror stuff.”

Nico groaned. “I don’t like _ghosts_ , for your information,” he corrected. “That’s just my screen name.”

“Whatever,” Percy interrupted. “Are you going to ignore the fact that I don’t even know if you have a face?”

“You know I do, I wouldn’t talk otherwise,” Nico muttered.

“That wasn’t literal,” Percy kept himself from grinning at Nico’s lack of understanding for simple irony. “You could be a fifty-year-old predator grooming me to come to your shady suburban apartment in New Jersey and I’m here talking to you like I trust you.”

“I’m not…” Nico stopped himself, sighing in resignation. “I’ll ignore that last comment.”

“I guess you really are a predator then,” Percy pushed on.

“Stop,” Nico commanded, before changing his tone to a lighter one, hesitant almost. “I actually wanted to ask you that.”

“No, I’m not fifty years old,” Percy replied, realizing he had been fidgeting with his notification bar for at least five minutes.

“Not that,” Nico sighed. “I mean, it was just an idea. Because my dad’ll be out of town for a couple of days, and I wanted to show you what I wanted to do with those battle passes.”

Percy stared at the screen for a moment before frowning. “Wait,” he stated, because it seemed too sudden to even be real. “Are you asking me to hang out at your house?”

“No,” Nico rushed to answer. “I mean, yes, I guess so. It just crossed my mind, you know? I know you’re not that far from where I live. It’s, like, an hour or so.”

“Fuck yeah, man,” Percy stated, a corner of his mouth turning upwards. “Anything for you to tell me why you got so mad at that guy who killed you on the second match.”

Nico was quiet for a moment before uttering his answer. “Stop that, I wasn’t…” he started, pausing for a second. “ _Mad._ I was just frustrated because he had just killed me using a fucking grenade.”

Percy burst out laughing. “Seriously, man, who dies like that? There must’ve been something else.”

“Someone else shot me when I was recharging my shields because I thought _you_ would’ve been there to cover,” Nico pushed on.

“Dude, I’m easily distracted,” Percy tried to justify himself. “I had someone else in my line of fire and I just caught the opportunity.”

“Well, next time you _tell_ me what you’re doing before doing it,” Nico spoke, back to his usual self.

“Sure,” Percy started, raising his eyebrows. “If I remember to.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Nico muttered, sighing. “Whatever. So you’ll come?”

“Yeah, I mean, what day?” asked Percy.

“It would be during the weekend, either Saturday or Sunday,” Nico spoke.

This time, Percy hummed while looking through his calendar before replying. He had learned his lesson. “Sure, man, I’ll be there this Saturday,” he opened his video chat again, looking straight into the camera with a sneer on his face. “One condition, though.”

“What?” Nico asked, seemingly annoyed. Percy didn’t care.

“I still don’t know if you’re that fifty-year-old man I was talking about,” Percy started, shrugging nonchalantly and raising his eyebrows. “My mom is very protective, you know. She won’t let me go unless she knows who you are.”

Nico sat still for a while. “Cut the crap,” he muttered, but Percy had no intention of following that advice.

“I’m serious, man,” he shrugged again, wearing an apologetic expression on his face and his most innocent look. “Sorry.”

“I hate you,” Nico spoke, and Percy knew there was no truth in that. “What should I do, call her?”

“Nah, just send me a picture or something and I’ll show her,” Percy started, pretend-thinking. “Or you could just activate your video now and I’ll convince her with that. She trusts me enough.”

“You’re impossible,” Nico said, and Percy had already heard that before many times from Annabeth’s mouth. He just smiled. “Christ, _fine_. Gimme a second.”

“Sure,” Percy lunched forward, his arms on his knees and both holding his phone.

He tried keeping his smirk from showing while patting himself on the shoulder in his mind. Throwing his cellphone from one hand to the other, he listened to the sound of shifting fabric on the other line. He barely registered a low thump, like Nico’s phone had just been put on a hard surface.

“Could you stop that?” Nico asked after Percy almost dropped his phone.

So he stopped, suddenly focusing on the screen. “Sorry,” he uttered almost automatically, looking at Nico’s now moving image. He gave him a small amused smile. “You still look fifty to me.”

Nico’s black eyes rolled up as he crossed his arms on the same black leather chair Percy had noticed last time. “Must be the dark circles.”

“Probably,” Percy smirked, observing what he assumed was Nico’s room. “Is that your room?”

“Yeah,” Nico looked around, raising his chin to glance at the ceiling. “It’s big for one person. I used to share it with my sister, but she’s studying in Italy. So it’s all mine now.”

Percy raised his eyebrows as he noticed the queen-sized bed in the background. “That’s cool. Mine is not even half of that.”

Nico shrugged lightly before spinning a bit on his chair, looking at the screen. “We have a big house. My dad likes feeling rich and he’s all into vintage stuff, so he basically turned his room into an eight-hundreds European royalty bedroom,” Nico scoffed, sort of sourly. “It’s ridiculous.”

“I bet it’s not as bad as it sounds,” Percy tried then, only to be met with Nico’s judging eyes. He was probably in front of some kind of light because his face was tinted a light white as he turned to face the screen.

“He has a fucking four-posted bed,” Nico started. “With red velvet covers.”

Percy tried imaging the whole thing.

He tried not to chuckle. He really tried to.

“Yeah, I would laugh too if I didn’t have to live with him every day,” Nico talked over the laughter in the background.

“Okay, wait,” Percy then managed to speak, holding himself back. “Does he also sit in a black leather chair with golden stuff around it?”

Nico frowned then, looking confused. “No,” he stated, still thinking. “He does have a black velvet chair in his room, though.”

“Never mind, I was imaging a _Scarface_ kind of guy,” Percy said dismissively, still laughing at the image of an Italian, coffin-maker gangster that had popped up in his mind.

“He’s not that kitsch,” Nico argued, starting to slightly spin in his chair again. “Not until now.”

“What about your mom?” Percy asked then since he couldn’t remember a single time Nico had mentioned his other parent.

The expression on Nico’s face and the silence afterward was the sign he should have definitely never asked.

“She died,” was Nico’s brief, monotone answer.

Percy’s thoughts stopped.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have asked that.”

A lock of Nico’s hair fell down on his face as he looked to the side, and he pushed it back seemingly with annoyance before turning back to face the screen. “Never mind. You didn’t know.”

“I guess I know now,” Percy rushed to answer, scratching the back of his neck and looking to the side for a moment. “Won’t talk about that.”

“Guess so,” Nico replied, and Percy noticed how his eyes had darkened after Percy’s question.

It was just a lighting effect, Percy figured. Still, he could now see get a glimpse of a stronger emotion on Nico’s face. And that caused a weird shift in his guts, like Percy should somehow feel guilty. He had no idea why, but he wanted that feeling to go away as soon as possible.

So, he kept talking. They argued about design choices when Percy had noticed the blue wall lights above Nico’s bed, and then ended up talking about movies and comic books. Percy being both a _Marvel_ and _DC_ fan, couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Nico had never read a _DC_ comic in his whole life. He also couldn’t manage to understand how the other could be a big fan of _The Walking Dead_ and be unironically afraid of zombies at the same time, though it probably had to do with his dad never hiding the fact that he worked with dead people all day.

When they called it off, it ended up being almost 11:30 P.M.

When Percy came back downstairs, his mom and Paul ad just finished watching whatever crime series they were into at the moment, and just looked at him funny before asking “Just a quick call, huh?”. Percy smiled awkwardly before heading to his room and fall straight onto his bed after a quick change of clothes.

He sent a final message to Nico. _So now that I ruled out you being a predator, what’s your address?_

Percy waited for him to answer.

_I’ll send you the location._

Percy smiled slightly in front of the screen. _You got it, ghost boy_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post the next chapter tomorrow when I'll finish re-reading it (also because it's my favorite chapter so far because,, gay). 
> 
> another note since I like to talk with no one in particular: I tried to write Percy as in character as possible, but I sometimes fail to make him as wholesome as he's in the books. he's a bit of an asshole here and I realize that. also I'm giving him way too many adhd problems that I don't think he has in the books? or at least I never noticed. I'm not even sorry for that, but I just thought I should point it out.
> 
> see you tomorrow for the next one!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it is so very late here and I'm really sleepy but here you are, the double update I promised yesterday is here.
> 
> thank you all for the kudos/comments/subscriptions/etc!!!!! it's still absurd to have people read this shit.
> 
> I really hope you'll enjoy at least as much as I enjoyed writing it

That week passed just as normally as any other before that, with the only difference that he was practically beaming with energy and seemed to find his homework material much lighter than usual.

During the week, he passed with decent grades both his US History and Spanish classes. The following week would’ve been Anatomy and English’s turn, but he wasn’t worried about them that much. All of his teachers were aware of his dyslexia and the help he was receiving, especially for his English classes, was enough for him to relax at least one day during the weekend, not having to think about following projects or pop quizzes or the approaching finals in May. He wouldn’t have needed a high grade on his SATs anyway, because he definitely wasn’t going to college. It didn’t matter what his mom, dad, and stepdad thought. He knew he would have never been a good fit for higher education. Both because of his brain-wiring and because of his own attitude towards theoretical knowledge.

Also, he had other plans.

That Friday night, he had notified his mom about his coming small trip. She had looked at him, smiling sweetly, telling him he would’ve been welcome to go if he would’ve been back on Sunday to study both by himself and with Annabeth.

For the record, Percy had lied to Nico a few days before: his mom couldn’t care less about knowing exactly who he was with, as long as he could promise not to stay out of reach for a long period. She had always left him all the privacy he needed and, consequently, he had never had to worry about doing all the explaining. She knew what Nico’s name was, though, and where he lived.

He prepped for his train trip shoving in his backpack his power bank, his charger, his hooded jacket just in case, his metal water bottle, and some chips.

Nico had sent him the location on Friday evening, and Percy could confirm that it would’ve just been an hour and a half of train travel from his Manhattan apartment to Nico’s town.

He said goodbye to his mom and Paul before heading out on Saturday morning, taking his keys with him and starting to walk towards the closest subway directed to New York Penn Station. Manhattan was rather quiet on that Saturday morning, people jogging close to him and roads relatively empty, compared to their usual crowded lanes. Percy thanked the weather for being so nice not to put him down, the sun shining on his hair and face. Everything seemed good and almost too calm except for a nice, vibrant note of excitement pulsing in his chest.

Subways had always been difficult for him; too much noise and movement for his brain to process exactly what he needed to safely reach his destination. Music did help him concentrate, though, and he had thankfully remembered to shove a pair of headphones in his backpack. As he hopped on the first train to Penn Station, he took the time to select his favorite hip-hop playlist and relaxed against the metal stands on the train. Arrived at the central station, he directed himself towards the 5th track and waited for his train, observing the map around where Nico’s house was located.

It seemed like a residential area, just beside a high school and close to the main street, in the north-east part of the state.

Nico had told him he would’ve probably been sleeping until late in the morning, and it was only around 10:00 P.M. when Percy got on the interstate train.

Sitting on one of the few free spots still left, he relaxed against the seat beside the window and started a _Subway Surf_ and _League of Legends_ marathon that lasted all the way to his stop, almost fifty minutes later.

He had, intelligently, set an alarm for when the train had scheduled the arrival, and luckily got off at the right stop on the first try. He had still had to get up from time to time to keep his legs from going berserk under his seat, avoiding the weird looks the middle-aged couple in front of him was giving him during the whole final part of the trip. That made him realize his headphones had probably blocked out all the sounds he was producing anyway. He couldn’t bring himself to care, though.

Exiting from the unfamiliar station, he found himself in a fairly quiet, green area. Small, well-kept square buildings met his eye, the road in front of him as clean as could be. All he could see were some residential blocks and some businesses scattered here and there. It seemed like a nice place, pretty different from his own area in Manhattan’s upper east side, a conglomerate of tall buildings and the traffic jam that could be heard even from the last floor of his complex behind closed doors. That was instead almost too quiet for his standards.

Unlocking his phone, he started walking for the remaining mile he needed to cover to then find himself where Nico’s location was, pinging on his Google Maps app. His house faced a secondary road, near a small park. Looking in the distance he could spot what looked like woods all around the seemingly small town.

The more distance he covered on the main road, the more he knew he was getting closer to the rich part of town, with English-cut lawns in front of perfectly painted single-family houses.

They looked pretty, though, he thought. It was a shame this place was so far from the sea.

Entering the last avenue he would have had to sweep before finding himself in front of Nico’s house, Percy couldn’t help but read a small sign along the road; it said something like “St. Something Cemetery”, pointing to some cross street, the opposite way from the residential area. He didn’t put any effort into reading the name but, for obvious reasons, Percy was not surprised by the fact that Nico lived near a cemetery.

As he kept on going, he enjoyed his daily dose of sunbathing before coming to a halt. According to his phone, he was in front of Nico’s house.

He looked around, lingering a bit more on the house directly to his right.

It was a big residence painted mostly white, with some black edges, the lawn cut just as perfectly as all the other surrounding homes and two rectangular-shaped shrubs in front of the porch.

On the right side of the porch, in front of a couple of windows, he could see a boy dressed in all black, his back turned towards the street.

He was almost too easy to recognize, like a black sheep in the middle of a white herd.

Percy smiled as he texted Nico, feeling his mouth slowly turning up into a smile. _It’s not very kind to turn your back to your guests u know_

He then observed the boy taking out something from his pocket – presumably his phone. Percy then crossed his arms as he observed Nico quickly turning towards him, and now Percy could really see him. He threw a friendly smile at him from a distance, still standing on the sidewalk facing the residence.

The other just put his phone back in his back pocket before walking towards him on the narrow stone path leading to the sidewalk. He wore a large t-shirt with a small writing on the upper left part that Percy didn’t care to decipher now, some black jeans with a metal chain attached to his side, and a good part of his wrists were covered by some leather bracelets.

To Percy’s surprise, he was holding a cigarette in between the fingers of his right hand.

“You smoke?” Percy asked, maybe too suddenly.

The other looked at his fuming cigarette, as to check if it was still there. He then glanced at Percy again, a perplexed look on his face.

Percy had noticed, in the meanwhile, just now how skinny Nico was and how he probably looked smaller than he was because of that wrong-sized t-shirt.

“Yeah, sometimes. Is that a problem?” Nico replied, now standing right in front of him.

His voice did sound different now, less robotic and warmer. It still had the raspiness and the roughness of that of a teenager whose voice had begun to thicken, but it was strangely nice to listen to.

Also, being shorter than him, the top of the other’s head probably only reached Percy’s own collarbone. He had expected Nico to be taller, somehow.

But that’s fun, Percy thought to himself, slightly smirking.

Another thing he could tease him about.

“No. I mean, sorry, I wasn’t expecting that,” Percy admitted, cursing at himself for not thinking before speaking. He was still extremely distracted by everything else.

He held out a hand, waiting for Nico to shake it.

The younger boy looked a bit hesitant at first. A couple second later, he held it and briefly shook it with a firm grip.

Percy couldn’t help but notice how cold and slightly clammy his hands were.

“Nice to meet you, then,” Percy stated, a bit ironically.

Nico just looked at him with an annoyed expression, his black eyes looking straight into his own.

“It’s not like we haven’t met before. Now you just know what my face looks like up close,” Nico said, swiftly turning his back on him and strolling towards the porch again. “Come on.”

Percy followed him on the short path leading to the house, climbing the stairs to the porch and following Nico with his gaze when he sat on the white, metallic bench just outside the door. He stopped in front of him, placing his backpack on the ground with a thud.

“I’m going to finish this if you don’t mind”, Nico stated, raising his cigarette and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“Sure”, Percy replied, burying his hands in his jeans’ pockets. “So, your dad’s out for work?”

The younger boy took a drag and exhaled before replying, the remaining smoke traveling outside his mouth when he spoke.

“Kind of. He’s in Philadelphia to meet someone for charity,” he answered, eyeing the road in front of him. Nico then looked at him with a scrutinizing gaze. “He doesn’t know I smoke, and he would freak out if he knew. I only do this when he’s not here.”

Percy knew that there was an implicit request there to not tell Nico’s father about it. He silently complied.

“My mom would kill me too if she knew what I smoke. My dad’s a little more chill, though,” he admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders.

He started noticing Nico’s pale complexion, the veins on the back of his hand a soft green.

Nico raised his eyebrows in a sarcastic gesture. “I mean, she’s not wrong,” he muttered, taking yet another drag. “But, I mean, if you say it helps with your ADHD, then you shouldn’t care.”

Percy appreciated the understanding tone and laid back against the black, spiked railing behind him. “It kinda does, y’know. At least momentarily. It’s great when it kicks in, but the side-effects are still there,” he admitted, glancing at the windows behind Nico’s back. “Or maybe I just fell too deep into the self-medication hole.”

A corner of Nico’s mouth turned up. “Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have to deal with high school.”

“Honestly, I don’t know how you even manage being homeschooled,” Percy replied, observing Nico breathe out another cloud of smoke. “It’s been like this since…?”

“From the start of high school. When my mom…” Nico lowered his head, finishing his cigarette and studying its extinguished butt. “… You know.”

And there it went again, the feeling he was walking on eggshells.

Having someone who was still clearly affected by such tragedy made him extremely uneasy, but he didn’t dare to let it show.

“Yeah, I get it,” he replied automatically, trying to not let his tone betray his nervousness. “It’s nice around here. I never see these many trees except in Central Park.”

Nico looked to the side, eyeing the alley siding the house that apparently led to a close-by park. “I know,” the younger boy replied, throwing the cigarette butt in a small metal box that he pushed underneath a fancy, white-and-gold porcelain vase. “My dad travels to New York often and he used to take me with him. I never liked the city. I like the bridges, though. They’re cool.”

“Especially at night,” Percy commented, smirking. “You have no idea how pretty it is from the rooftop bars, man. You’ll have to go there sometime.”

Nico scoffed, getting up from his seat and playing with his bracelets. “It won’t be anytime soon.”

Percy slightly frowned at that last comment, and couldn’t bring himself to move on. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” the younger one said as he walked towards the front door left ajar. “Come in.”

As Percy gathered his belongings from the floor and stood inside the doorway, entering through the first arched entrance to his left, his eyes grew wide.

The floor was dark wood, shiny and spotless, without a single scratch. The saloon was directly in front of them, and a huge stone fireplace stood on the right side of the room. On top of it, a massive TV towered over the sofa and armchairs circling a glass-and-gold coffee table, that was almost off-key in between those vintage fabric seats. It honestly looked like what one would find in some abandoned, ancient mountain castle.

“So,” Percy started, staring at the sight in front of him. “Someone likes vintage, huh?”

Nico scowled before walking towards the other open room to the right side of the entrance. “This is still the most modern part apart from my room.”

“How long have you lived here for?” Percy asked as he followed Nico to what he found out was the lunchroom, with the kitchen directly in front of it.

“Since I was seven,” Nico replied absentmindedly. “We moved here from Venice because my parents wanted to raise us here. Me and my sister.”

As Percy hummed, taking in the information, he was met with the dark tones of the kitchen. It was an – obviously, what was he even expecting – Italian style kitchen, the counter forming an L shape and covering most of the walls. It was all tinted a dark brown and red and dull orange, its marble floor being a mix of warm earth colors. It had everything: all the basics like a huge fridge, oven, microwave, a double sink, and a stove, but also objects that he honestly didn’t recognize. Like a small, black cylindric thing with a small handle laying on the smaller stove.

“What’s that?” He asked, getting closer to the counter to stop to lay on the marble kitchen island in the middle of the room.

Nico looked at the utensil before looking at him again. “It’s a moka pot,” he raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never seen it?”

“Oh, wait, the one you use to make coffee with?” Percy suddenly remembered, tapping on the cold stone underneath his fingers.

“Yeah, that one,” Nico replied as he held a yellow cup in his hand with a jolly roger flag print on. “Coffee machines are alright. This one’s great.”

Percy wouldn’t know.

His mom had basically banned coffee from the house because, for some unfortunate reason, it would do nothing to him apart from turning him into an insomniac. It did indeed help him focus, but the side-effects were enough for his mom to stop his intake of caffeine the more she could.

He looked around the kitchen, noticing the few colorful magnets on the fridge holding up some family photos. Out of curiosity, he walked towards the appliance to take a better look.

What looked like a teenage girl smiled in one of the pictures, her dark and wavy hair falling down behind her back and on her silver quilted jacket. Her complexion seemed darker than Nico’s, and a spurt of freckles contoured her nose and cheeks, her eyes as black as who he assumed was his brother.

Nico seemed to not approve of his curiosity. “Stop, don’t…”

“Is this your sister?” Percy asked, ignoring Nico’s warning. It was already too late anyway.

The younger one sighed deeply. “Yeah, that’s Bianca. She’s in Bologna now.”

“She’s pretty,” Percy commented, a corner of his mouth turning up when he scanned through the other pictures, his eyes laying on one in which who he assumed was a toddler-Nico sitting on the wooden floor of a house, in front of him a coloring book and his sister kneeling in front of him looking up at the camera, grinning. “Aw, is this you?”

“Okay, enough with that,” Nico came suddenly beside him, making his way out of the kitchen. “I’ll show you my room.”

Percy looked to his side, watching as Nico’s back in front of him walking at a quick pace back towards the entrance.

“But you were so cute,” he lamented with irony in his voice, following the other with his backpack in hand. The younger boy didn’t answer, though, to Percy’s displeasure.

Interesting, Percy thought. Apparently, Nico could get flustered too.

As the younger boy stopped in front of the huge stairwell directly in front of the front door, he turned to Percy with judging eyes.

“Oh, also,” he started dismissively before resuming the climb on the moquette floor. “Take your shoes off. My dad’s a clean freak.”

Percy looked perplexedly at the other, glancing at his own worn-out, smog-grey vans. He made a face before complying, taking them off, and then holding them as he went up the stairs. At the top, Nico turned directly to the left and entered through the first door wearing some Pokémon stickers on.

Noticing that detail, Percy smirked, entering what he recognized as Nico’s room.

He remembered the black, queen-sized bed at the center of the left wall, surrounded by the same blue, tiny Christmas lights hanging on the wall. What he hadn’t had the occasion to notice from the video-call were some huge posters all over the wall on the same side of the door. Part of it was games posters, like _Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag_ , _Final Fantasy VII_ , and, obviously, _Olympus_. What he guessed were band pictures instead, just as big as the others, were hanging beside them, all staring down at him.

“Close the door,” Nico commanded as he sat on the desk chair definitely too tall for him, in front of a huge Mac PC.

“Why? No one’s even home,” Percy questioned, remembering the fixation his mom had for asking him to leave his door open when home alone.

“It makes me nervous,” was Nico’s simple answer as he sipped on his coffee mug, pushing the moving chair to the side and looking at him with a serious look.

Percy just shrugged, then, closing the purple door behind him.

Noticing a change of light in the corner of his eye, he got closer to Nico’s desk to ascertain that what he had seen was true.

“You have a fucking _rainbow keyboard_?” Percy chimed, eyes wide, already caressing the keys with a finger. “Man, this is fucking cool. Jason has the same one but with just green.”

Nico slightly shrugged then, looking at the keyboard. “Yeah, I bought it some weeks ago. I like it too.”

“I hate you rich people, acting like that’s no big deal,” Percy commented sarcastically. “I would lose my head over something like this. I got my first headset a month ago and my mom couldn’t even keep me there long enough to thank my stepdad.”

Nico chuckled, placing the cup in front of his computer. “I got used to it,” he started, crossing his arms. “My dad’s the kind to give you gifts instead of hugs, you know. But I’m not complaining.”

Percy placed himself on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs. It being a very soft mattress, he began bouncing up and down, hearing the nice sound of the springs creak under his weight. “I would’ve never guessed.”

Nico turned towards the computer then, and Percy watched as the screen lit up and Nico inserted his password. “Why, because I look like I lack affection?”

“Kind of,” Percy admitted ironically, smirking. “What’re you doing?”

Nico turned towards him to throw him an icy stare. “I don’t _lack_ affection. I was born like this.”

“So it’s not a phase?” Percy retaliated, still smiling amusedly.

“Shut up, _Surfour20_ ,” Nico grunted, and he was off looking at the screen again. “I wanted to show you something.”

Percy laughed as he got up from his spot and got closer to the other’s chair, putting his elbows on top of the fake leather chair. “Like what?”

He observed as Nico’s mouse swiftly opened up an open tab. He read it out loud, squinting his eyes.

“Rules for this year’s NuOlympus Tournament…” Percy muttered, barely registering what he was saying. “Sign up to know more. First date is the 20th of…”

He stopped, frowning. Looking at Nico, Percy could see that he was staring at the screen.

“What do you think?” The younger one asked, taking another sip from his cup.

Percy stared.

It was impossible; there was no way Nico was asking him to be part of something so important and considering him dependable and trustable enough for _that_.

“You’re kidding,” Percy snickered, incredulous, looking at the screen again. “There’s no way.”

Nico looked at him then, turning the chair towards him.

Percy looked down at him, not fully processing the other’s request.

“I’m not,” Nico stated with a low tone. When Percy didn’t answer, but just stared at him with his mouth half-open, he raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m really not. This is why I needed those battle passes in the first place.”

“Wait, what?” Percy asked.

“Yeah. I need them to pass the qualifications more easily,” he replied, playing with one of his bracelets and turning towards the PC. “We’ll work from there for the regional and then state events.”

Nico had just used “we”, and Percy definitely hadn’t been ready for that kind of request.

He wanted to accept the other’s offer so badly. That had basically been his whole plan for when he would’ve finished high school.

Thing is, Nico was telling him now. That was the only reason why he was still holding himself back.

His parents would’ve never approved of something like that. It would have taken so much of his time, and he had barely enough off-time to play those few hours and hang out with his girlfriend.

Still, he reminded himself: life was made of opportunities. It was like that when surfing, he repeated.

_You either catch the wave, or you drown, Percy._

And, if you decide to just look, you never get to live the experience.

“I…” Percy hesitated, looking at the screen. The rules for the tournament were still there, watching him.

“There’s money,” Nico stated. “You always get something.”

He stared for a couple seconds more before his mouth uttered for him what he couldn’t formulate yet.

“Oh, fuck that,” Percy grinned, looking at the younger boy again. “I don’t care about the money. When do we start?”

Nico turned to look at him then, and a corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk, matching Percy’s own expression.

“Now,” he stated, immediately getting up from his chair and heading towards a shelf on top of his desk. He had a golden and a blue PS4 controller in his hands, looking at Percy with expectation. “Choose one.”

Percy’s smile widened as he grabbed the blue controller without hesitation, sitting back on the edge of the bed.

He waited for Nico to start the NuOlympus application on his Steam account before he started playing alone. The creators had not yet created a way for two people to play together on the same console, but that was okay. Nico had announced he was going to train him anyway, and he knew he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on what Percy was doing if he too would have been participating. It was still weird, being instructed by a fifteen-year-old on how to play, but it didn’t bother Percy too much, knowing how much time he needed to get better to even hope to win a professional tournament; considering that he couldn’t yet believe it, and it still seemed like a joke to him, though, he knew he wasn’t putting his maximum skills in what he was doing. Nico seemed to notice, though, getting frustrated with him and switching to sarcastic mode every time he did something not quite intelligent or useful to his strategy.

After what had felt like approximately an hour, an alarm went off on Nico’s phone. Since Percy had expected some kind of either classical or death metal jingle, he was almost surprised when a default notification tone reached his ears.

“It’s 1 P.M.,” Nico stated, probably more to himself than to Percy. He held his phone in his hand before turning to Percy, who was still working towards the end of a match, reviving one of his teammates while hiding from one of the remaining teams. “I’m gonna order something. Do you eat meat?”

“Do I look like a vegetarian to you?” Percy asked, finally accomplishing his goal to reach the revival spot.

Nico chuckled. “I was trying not to stereotype,” he explained, scrolling through his phone. “I’ll try doing it more from now on.”

“I’m kidding, ghost boy. I’m okay with everything fat and oily,” Percy replied, stopping to turn around and locate their enemies. “Is there a New York’s Pizza close-by?”

“I don’t like pizza,” Nico stated, to which Percy’s jaw dropped. He resisted the urge to look at him with his most indignant look.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” He questioned, now definitely not devoting his full attention to the game anymore.

“No, I’m serious,” Nico retaliated, looking at the screen. “I don’t really enjoy American pizza. Nor the Italian one, for that matter,” he continued, before stopping and glancing at the screen. “To your left, anyway. Someone’s close, go hide somewhere.”

“You’re so weird,” Percy muttered absentmindedly, before turning around and directing himself towards the source of the movement. “What’re you gonna tell me next, that you eat lasagna for breakfast?”

“You’re dead,” Nico muttered.

“What…” Percy tried, before he was being shot with a sniper gun from a high hill in front of him. He fell down, knocked out, before he could even see who had fired.

He cursed at himself for not having recharged his shields soon enough; he blamed it on Nico and his embarrassingly uncommon tastes in food.

“Told you,” Nico spoke. Percy promised himself he would have not had peace until he would have annoyed the other enough to compensate the irritation he was feeling right then.

He snorted, leaving the match and accepting the ten-minute penalty for having abandoned his teammates. “I have no idea how you do that.”

“I just know where to look,” Nico commented, handing him his phone. “Here, choose whatever you want. I’m paying anyway.”

“Why are you paying when you’re fifteen and probably never had a job?”

“Because my dad allows me to use his personal bank account whenever I want,” the younger boy stated, getting up from his chair and grabbing the now empty mug on the desk. “Also, I’m not an asshole.”

“You look like one, that’s why I asked,” Percy joked, and Nico glared at him.

“Shut up,” Nico commanded before heading for the door. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

Percy was left choosing between several sandwiches and appetizers, until he settled for an appetizer mix and some diet coke. Looking at their basket, he saw that Nico’s only order had been a chicken salad. He made a face when he put the phone back on the desk, unlocked, and started walking around the room.

Looking around since he had nothing better to do, he could see now that the lights behind the bed also changed color, from blue to violet. On the walls, apart from the same towering posters he had already noticed, there were bookshelves full of either books, collections of mangas, and… were these anime figures?

He stopped to stare at one in particular, with extremely long blue hair in two ponytails and a microphone in hand. He knew he was supposed to know who that was, but he gave up after a couple of seconds of meditation. The rest consisted of school books, some titles that Percy was pretty sure were Italian, and other small decorative items. The white closet was half-open, but all he could see inside was either black or some dark blue color. On the dark wooden floor similar to the living room’s, there was a huge, soft purple carpet.

He had no idea how he hadn’t noticed the fact that both Venetian blinds were shut, on both the windows on the right side of Nico’s bed.

Just as he was studying the trophies and medals on the desk’s bookshelf, he heard the bathroom door open and Nico walking back towards the room.

“Those are almost all my sister’s,” Nico explained, taking his phone from the desk. “Did you order?”

“Yeah,” Percy replied, following the younger one towards the door. “So your sister did archery?”

“Yeah,” Nico replied absentmindedly, descending the large stairs. “She was the her high school’s champion. Won a lot of competitions and all that.”

“That’s sick, how long did she do it for?”

“Since middle school,” the other swiftly answered, leading Percy directly to the luxurious living room. “She was good at everything she did, like spelling and that school-competition stuff. She started school a year before she was supposed to because she could already read at the age of four.”

Well, thought Percy.

He couldn’t even fully read at the age of seventeen, so. “Wow, she’s a smart girl. What is she studying now?”

“Cultural Heritage,” Nico replied, sitting on the large sofa and looking at his phone. “Has the maximum grade on every exam she takes.”

Okay, now Percy was starting to feel bad.

There she was, this genius girl that at the age of barely eighteen was living abroad and being successful in everything she tried.

Or, at least, that’s what Nico made it look like. He wasn’t sure if Nico was telling him this out of pride or simply stating facts.

The look on Nico’s face, though, revealed to Percy that there was something more hidden in his expression that he didn’t want to dig into. For now, at least.

“Cool,” Percy started, trying to change the topic. He walked, sitting on one of the wood-adorned armchairs. “What about you? Will you go to college?”

Nico scowled. “I don’t know, yet…” he stopped himself before Percy saw the corners of his mouth turning upwards.

“Are you actually smiling?” Percy inquired, failing to hold back a smirk when he saw Nico quickly lock his phone and putting it back in his pocket. “Who was that?”

“I wasn’t smiling,” Nico rushed to answer, moving a black lock of hair from his face. And he was blushing, for Christ’s sake. “Mind your own business.”

“Man, you couldn’t be more obvious,” Percy stated, hunching forward and his bouncing his legs. “What’s her name?”

“I told you to mind your own business,” Nico glared at him, menacingly, already getting defensive. “There’s no girl.”

“Guy?” Percy corrected, wearing a shit-eating grin as Nico’s face gained a little more color.

“Christ, there’s _no one_ , okay?” the other bashed before he was up again and walking towards the kitchen without another word.

Percy followed him with his gaze, still not sure about Nico’s reaction to that question.

There clearly was something keeping him from talking to Percy about personal stuff. Percy himself didn’t know how to break down that wall yet, though; and it was not like he hadn’t tried. Nico could’ve had thousands of possibilities to confess to something more about his anxiety problems, the reason why his dad was so protective, or his mom’s death.

Not that Percy felt offended by that, at all. There was just this pull inside his chest that kept on dragging him back to Nico’s personal space.

He clearly wasn’t fit to deal with private people.

He decided to just give Nico some time and later change the topic once again. So, during the minutes in which he heard Nico mess with some cluttery in the kitchen, he had the time to notify his mom of his arrival and send a couple messages to Annabeth asking about her day.

After Nico came back with a couple of glasses and a bottle of water, his face had already turned its usual pale white. His lips were pressed together, though, so Percy raised an eyebrow at him as he spoke.

“Fine,” Nico muttered as he drank from his glass of water. “There’s this person I met online.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Percy chimed, crossing his legs on the chair and watching the other attentively. He ignored the small, tight feeling in his chest born as soon as Nico had finished talking. “Where?”

“Some Discord server,” Nico replied, glancing at him. He started playing with his bracelets again, watching them as he twisted them on his finger. “We’ve been talking for a while now. Giving me advice and all that. It’s just that they’re…”

Nico stopped, looking to the side. He sighed, and Percy pushed on, raising his eyebrows. “What? They love pizza and you don’t?”

Nico rolled his eyes. “They won’t like me. Like, I know how this goes,” he started again, a bit hesitant. “They’re kind and all until they really get to know you. Or see your face.”

“Are they on the pretty or on the gorgeous side?”

“More on the could-be-a-model side,” Nico replied, his cheeks tinting pink again. “The type that doesn’t talk with people like me.”

Percy frowned, humming and sitting back on the chair. He looked around, trying to think about the words to use. “Well, you’re already talking. I guess that’s a win,” he started. “Also, what’s wrong with you exactly?”

Nico frowned, looking at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s not like you’re even remotely ugly,” Percy replied, matter-of-factly. “And I guess that, if they already talked to you all this time… how much actually?”

“Three months,” Nico muttered, diverting his gaze again.

“Then I really don’t think they’ll change their mind when they’ll see your face,” he continued, shrugging. “That’s just not how it works. At this point, you could either become best friends, or something more. Y’know.”

Nico sat quietly for a while, resting against the back of the sofa, crossing his legs and biting on his nails. “Will’d never…” he muttered, before the words stuck in his throat. “I mean, they’d…”

“Gotcha,” Percy smirked, genuinely feeling excited and almost happy for a reason he couldn’t identify. But, there it was, the slight sinking feeling. Percy barely registered it as he went on with his interrogation. “That’s his name?”

“That’s too many questions,” Nico spat, sourly, before crossing his arms and avoiding Percy’s eyes. “The conversation’s over.”

“Are you afraid I’ll track him down?” Percy tried, chuckling. “I mean, you wouldn’t be wrong. You just told me he’s on the gorgeous side, so now I’m pretty curious...”

Nico finally looked at him then, scowling. “Try to do that and I’ll report you,” he said, getting up again and approaching the huge fireplace, on top of which Percy spotted the white Wii console. “Any Wii games you like?”

“Any Wii games I _don't_ like, you mean,” he grinned excitedly. “What's your personal favorite?”

Nico stopped in front of the TV, pushing the console's power button and grabbing two white controllers. “That's private information.”

“Aw, come on,” Percy begged, turning towards Nico with his whole body. “It's not like we're not intimate enough at this point. Was Will his name?”

Nico scoffed, eye-rolling him and walking towards the big central sofa. “Fine. It’s _Super Mario Bros_. The first one, though. Not the other versions.”

Percy stared at him, and felt his mouth twist into a smirk. “That ain’t bad at all,” he got up from his chair and sat beside the other on the couch, swiftly taking one of the remotes from Nico's hands. “It’s one of my all-time favorites too.”

Nico looked at him then, and Percy caught a glimpse of a genuine, small smile on the other's lips. After that, he was staring at the illuminated screen again. “Let's see how you do.”

“Bring it on, kiddo,” Percy spoke, already getting into position to play.

They had played until the doorbell rang, and Percy had offered to go and take the food when he saw the look of hidden panic on Nico’s face. It was quick to turn into relief, though, when Percy came back with the food, the pizza guy already gone. Percy would’ve like to dive deeper into the reason why Nico seemed too terrified of going outside to grab just a couple food bags, but he honestly felt like he had already stressed the other out enough.

So, they kept on playing after having eaten their orders, Nico leaving at least a quarter of it on the plate, which ended up in Percy’s stomach. If that was how much Nico could eat in a whole morning, no wonder why his body was so thin. They managed to, together, go through the entire third world (Percy’s favorite), and then started to play through the seventh.

Percy was used to him and Nico playing together but, competition always seemed to get the best of them. There was no way Nico could just relax and enjoy the game; or, at least, the times he did Percy could count on just one hand. Playing like this was a whole other experience.

He couldn’t believe Nico was actually laughing (he was actually just huffing out what Percy interpreted as laughs, but who cared). It seemed so foreign, to actually enjoy spending some time together as friends should do. He was finally starting to slide into the “friend” role instead of the teammate’s; and for some reason, that thought excited him more than Percy thought it should have.

Almost too soon, another of Nico’s alarms went off (“snack time”, he had announced), so they decided to go put something in their half-empty stomachs.

Percy was yet to figure out why the hell Nico had set alarms for eating.

“I forget to eat,” he mentioned as Percy was eating some chips and drinking orange juice on the side. Nico was instead waiting for the tea machine to boil his tea water. “Because I either game all day or I study in my room. And I always have the curtains pulled down, so I never know what time it is and my internal clock is a bit fucked up.”

Percy chewed on a chip while staring at the younger boy. “You really don’t see the sun for days on end?”

Nico just slightly raised his shoulders, crossing his arms. “Yeah, kind of,” he muttered, looking down. “I told you, I don’t like going out.”

“That’s different, man, you can still get your daily fifteen minutes of sunlight even if you don’t like going outside,” Percy pushed on, trying not to sound patronizing. “I guess you already know that’s not good for you.”

Nico didn’t answer. Instead, he paid attention to the boiling water in the jug, pouring it in a black mug, an Earl Grey teabag already inside.

“I know,” was Nico’s late answer, after which he just moved to the dining room’s table, sitting on one of the cushioned, expensive-looking, ornated chairs.

Percy looked at him sit down, wondering what else the other was still hiding from him. It’s not like he was really hiding anything, though, he reflected. He was just omitting information. Percy couldn’t blame him for that, considering what a pathological introvert the guy was.

Still, something didn’t seem right. As his friend, Percy had very little idea on how to help him, because he had no idea what the problem was still.

Slowly, the puzzle pieces in his brain began to turn. He had made things right with both Annabeth and him; he had a new goal, now. From that moment on, it would have been all about putting effort into being a helpful presence in their lives. He decided to start with the boy sitting in front of him.

He sat beside him on the table, waiting for the other to finish his tea, leaving him some time by himself and his phone. He genuinely hoped that Will guy to be a positive influence on Nico and not just one of the many internet assholes you can stumble into when you’re fifteen years old.

“You mind if I go out for a smoke?” Nico suddenly asked after a while, locking his phone and placing it on the table beside his empty mug.

Percy imitated him, placing his own phone in his hoodie’s pocket. He looked at him before replying.

“Sure, go ahead,” Percy shrugged, observing Nico playing with the teabag inside the cup.

“Cool,” was Nico’s answer as he got up, kicking the chair to the side and heading towards the door, stopping to take his jacket on the coat hanger beside the entrance.

Well, nothing was keeping Percy there.

“I’ll come with you if that’s okay?” Percy asked before lazily getting up and turning towards the door.

Nico huffed out a small laugh while grabbing a grey hoodie from the coat hanger.

“That’s funny,” he stated sarcastically while opening the door, stepping outside without looking at him. “You never ask me permission when you’re being annoying.”

Percy frowned, starting to follow him.

“And when did I do that, again?” Percy questioned, ironically, heading outside in just his socks.

Standing on the wooden porch, he looked as Nico extracted a pack of cigarettes from underneath the same ornated vase near the bench.

“You want date and time?” Nico replied, taking a couple of cigarettes into his hand.

Percy had noticed them being already-made ones, and he got curious as to why.

He realized he had distracted himself without hearing what Nico had just answered him. He just shook his head, though, assuming it wasn’t a question.

“Why not the hand-rolled ones?” He questioned. Nico just looked at him, his legs crossed and searching for the lighter in his pocket.

“I’m lazy and don’t want to spend time rolling them,” he replied nonchalantly. “These are easier to hide, too.”

“They’re cheaper, though,” Percy pushed on, sitting beside Nico on the bench.

Nico quickly lightened a cigarette before inhaling.

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, exhaling the smoke. “It’s not like I don’t have enough money to spend.”

“So…” Percy continued, frowning. “You know how to roll?”

“’Course I know,” Nico scoffed after a few seconds of silence.

That didn’t convince Percy at all. But why the hell would someone lie about knowing how to roll cigarettes? he thought.

“You know, I have some weed in my backpack,” he tainted, a small smirk appearing on his face. “You want to show me how good you are, kiddo?”

Nico was trying so hard not to show he was lying that it was almost adorable. The neutral expression he had on his face betrayed all his cluelessness, though.

“I don’t roll joints,” he glared at him after taking another drag.

“It’s not for you, it’s for me. I never get it right,” Percy shrugged, still going along with his own game. “Please?”

Nico was looking right in front of him, probably pondering on how to answer to still pretend he knew more than Percy did.

“I said I know how to roll, not that I’m good at it,” the other pushed on, eye-rolling.

“Show me, still,” Percy replied, eager to hear what other excuses Nico could come up with. “Or I won’t be on your team.”

“Like you could do that,” Nico scoffed, glancing at him with a sly smile on his lips.

“I can and I will. Come on, just one,” Percy pretend-prayed, a pleading look in his eyes. “Have some bonding time with your comrades.”

Nico snorted loudly before answering a frustrated “Okay, Jesus, fine!”

Percy let out a laugh and, as soon as Nico had finished his first cigarette and hid the package again, the second one still in one of his pockets, headed with him towards Nico’s bedroom.

“If my dad smells something weird he’s going to never let you in the house again, know that,” Nico warned him, walking up the stairwell.

“Okay, jeez, I know,” Percy replied, running towards the bedroom door. “You think I’m interested in coming back here with him hating me?”

Nico didn’t answer that. He just murmured “Good,” before opening the door to his room, letting Percy in and closing the door behind them.

Heading towards the chair in front of Nico’s computer desk, Percy took a couple seconds to grab a second, smaller spinning chair sitting in a corner, placing it beside Nico’s seat. Then, as he sat down on, he started rummaging through his backpack, searching for the small plastic back under the false floor of the bag. As he took it out along with his papers, tobacco, and already-made filters, he pushed the chair towards Nico’s sitting figure.

He smirked as he threw the ingredients on the table, looking at the younger boy as he laid his head against the back of the chair.

“Go ahead,” he stated as he crossed his hands on his lap.

Nico just looked at the plastic bag intently before opening it, taking out some of the contents. At first, it was way too little for Percy’s tastes.

“Make it double, kiddo,” he teased. “Don’t be shy.”

Nico just glared at him again. “Stop calling me that or I’ll make you eat this,” he threatened, his expression dead serious.

That just made Percy chuckle as he looked at Nico grabbing with his fingers what he thought he needed to put inside the paper. As he took out the tobacco, instead, he took a clearly larger chunk. Percy laughed then, again, covering his mouth soon after because Nico had just looked at him so menacingly Percy was now seriously worried he had made him angry.

Nico’s pride was evidently taking a toll on him. But, he then actually threw a big chunk of what he already had in hand back into the bag, meaning he had listened. When he took out a paper and started to spread the tobacco in it, Percy noted that it was still too much, though.

“Okay, I’ll make things easier,” Percy said before he was taking the weed in his hands, slowly crumbling it with his fingers on the table.

Nico just ignored him, still trying to evenly spread the tobacco on the paper.

Just as he did that, he held the paper in his hands. Then, he stayed still.

Percy glanced at him from his side before going back to what he was doing. “Yeah?”

Nico just waited a few moments before answering.

“I’m just trying to remember,” Nico stated then, still staring at the screen in front of him to pretend he was thinking.

Percy tried to keep himself from laughing again. “Take your time,” he commented, already tasting victory.

Some other moments passed, and Percy had finished his part, wiping his fingers. He looked at Nico again, raising his eyebrows.

The other just stayed still, eyebrows slightly frowned. Then, he just laid the paper on the table, a slight sigh escaping his nose.

“I don’t remember,” Nico admitted, avoiding Percy’s gaze.

“You don’t _know_ ,” Percy smirked. “That’s different.”

“I did it once, okay?” Nico met his eyes, glaring at the person who had just exposed him. “It was just a long time ago.”

“What were you, ten?” Percy chuckled, and Nico seemed to frown even more in a scowl.

“God, shut up, man,” he commented, crossing his arms on his chest before distancing his chair from Percy’s. Whom had won. Again.

Grinning shamelessly before taking the paper and starting to roll it for himself, Percy sympathized with him and got closer to Nico’s chair again.

“I’ll teach you if you want to,” he asked, concentrating on spreading the tobacco inside.

“Do whatever you want,” Nico replied sourly, looking at his computer’s screen before inserting his password. “I’m not interested.”

Percy then just looked at the smaller boy, challenging him.

“You’ll thank me, seriously,” he stated. “It’s always a useful skill.”

Nico just stared back without blinking, annoyed. He grumbled once more before hunching out from his chair and laying his elbows on his knees, an annoyed expression on his face.

“You’ll have to do it, though,” Percy clarified, handing him the paper with the tobacco sitting inside.

Nico looked as Percy placed it in his hands. “I don’t know how to.”

“Take the two extremities and place them together,” Percy explained as he imitated the gesture with his own hands. “But take some tobacco out first.”

Nico did as he was told on the table.

“Now,” Percy continued, staring at Nico’s hands. “Just spread what’s inside rubbing them against each other. Then insert the filter on the right.”

Nico hesitated before trying. As Percy looked intently, waiting for the other to follow his instructions, he diverted his gaze from Nico’s hands to his face, and vice versa.

Soon after, he realized they were shaking.

He slightly frowned before opening his mouth to say something. At that moment, though, Nico just put the paper back on the table with a frustrated gesture.

“Listen, you can do it yourself,” Nico stated, avoiding his gaze and just staring at the lightened screen, again.

Percy didn’t exactly know what to say, but his mouth spoke before he could even think about censoring it.

“Are the shaky hands because of the anxiety?” He blurted out, voice low.

Of course they are, he told himself, mentally scolding himself for even asking.

And there he was, walking on eggshells again.

“Yeah. That pretty much never goes away,” Nico muttered, hiding his hands under his arms and squeezing them against his ribs. “Don’t know what to do with it.”

Percy just stayed silent for a couple moments, before taking the paper in his hands and putting some weed inside. He tried concentrated on that before answering, hoping to come up with something actually useful.

“That’s not your fault, y’know. It’s like my mind never turning off,” he spoke, hoping to reach Nico with his understanding and sympathy. “No way I can tone it down.”

The younger boy seemed to be lost in his own world instead.

Percy didn’t expect him to answer, but he kind of would have liked him to.

It was getting closer to dinner time, and Percy knew he had to be home by 10 P.M.

They didn’t have much time left, and that seemed to worry him quite a bit. He had spent his whole day there and, still, he wasn’t ready to go home yet.

He pondered on what to do, also since he had promised his mom to be home the day after to complete his Chemistry project and his English studies. There was no way he could crash there, though, since he had promised Annabeth he would’ve been there the next evening.

Still, why was so difficult for him to accept the fact that he was not going to see Nico for (probably) another month or so?

He just really wanted to help him, Percy figured, finally closing the paper.

Feeling bad for him had evidently become a regular occurrence. They were both teammates and friends now and seeing the other struggle with stuff as simple as rolling a cigarette, because of whatever problems had put him in the condition of living the life of a recluse in the first place, just didn’t sit well with him. He simply cared too much.

“You know…” Percy started again, ripping the remaining length of the paper off of the cigarette. “I’ve had this since I was really small. My mom used to jump from doctor to doctor because everyone was always trying to put me on medication, but she didn’t want to. So she basically had to deal with me being expelled from one school to the other and stuff. Once I, like, broke a kid’s nose in elementary school and never apologized to his mom,” he went on, chuckling.

He knew that wasn’t funny, so he stopped.

He continued after clearing his voice.

“So, the teachers hated me because I was slow, and the kids hated me because I was just too hyper to even play like a normal person,” Percy continued, doing half-turns on his chair. Nico was looking at him from time to time, not replying. “So I had been really angry at some point. By thirteen I was having anxiety attacks out of the blue, even though I couldn’t feel the anxiety, y’know? It just wasn’t there for me. My therapist had to actually make me realize I was feeling bad for them to stop.”

For some reason, that made a corner of Nico’s mouth twitch upwards.

That wasn’t much but, at least, Percy knew he was still listening. “I mean, everything worked out fine in the end. It may go away with time, but my dyslexia will always be there, so I don’t think I’ll ever be a librarian or a writer, but,” he pushed on, smiling awkwardly. It still tended to sting a bit, admitting that to himself. “At least I know how to live with it. You get what I mean?”

Nico waited for a moment before nodding and diverting his gaze, looking at his computer’s screensaver. He scanned the screen with his dark eyes, and Percy noticed his eyebrows relaxing and raising a bit.

Nico opened his mouth then, like he was about to say something. He closed it before he could utter a sound.

“You don’t have to answer,” Percy rushed to say, stopping his movement on the chair.

“You know what agoraphobia is?” Nico suddenly questioned.

A bit took aback, Percy thought hard about where he had heard that name before. He may have seen it on the internet somewhere for all he knew.

“Kind of no,” Percy admitted, going back at looking at the younger boy. “I know that it’s an anxiety thing, though.”

Nico made a face before looking down, then back at the screen, but not directly at it. His eyes looked like they were observing something else inwards. “Well, you want to know what that is?”

“I guess so,” Percy stated, hunching forward on his chair and fidgeting with his leg. “Is that…?” He asked, hoping Nico would get the meaning of the question.

Nico finally looked at him, turning to face him on his chair. He started playing with his bracelets again. “Yeah, well…” he sighed, laying back. “It’s difficult to explain.”

“Well, just try,” Percy shrugged, anticipation building inside of him.

He gave Nico time to think, the only noise in the room being his own foot rising and lowering on the floor.

“Imagine you’re outside, and you’re… I don’t know, going to school, and everything is fine,” the other started, a bit hesitant. He still wasn’t looking directly at Percy. “Then, you get a feeling something is about to go wrong. But, like, really wrong. Like you’re going to die there, you know? And you don’t know where that comes from, but you just know you feel it, so you cannot do anything about it,” Nico kept going, and Percy could feel the anxiety rising in his voice when he spoke.

Percy sat quietly for once, keeping himself from saying anything else except a brief hum.

“The thing is, I know that that’s just a panic attack. It happens sometimes, you know how it goes,” Nico continued. “But then the fact that you don’t see it coming is the thing that gets to my head. It never happened inside, it’s always… outside, with people. And then they look at you like you’re this crazy person and they’re just scared. So, you’re left there thinking you’re going to die, and people make things worse by just looking at you sideways.”

He stopped for a moment, sighing, and now Percy did notice the slight trembling in his hands again. Nico seemed to be right, about the fact that it never seemed to subside.

“That’s the thing that scares me the most,” Nico muttered. “That’s why I don’t go out.”

It took a moment for Percy to fully understand what Nico meant with that.

He tried imaging what that could be like, to be so scared to avoid living entirely. Despite knowing what anxiety attacks felt like – the heavy breathing, the panicked thoughts, the overstimulation, he still had no idea how having regular panic attacks would feel like.

“That sounds...” Percy started, observing Nico’s bothered expression. “Yeah, pretty awful.”

Nico just shrugged, lips pressed together. He inhaled deeply before replying. “Yeah...” he whispered, before resuming talking with his usual, unemotional tone. “It's still manageable, though. I just... prefer to stay inside.”

“So, wait,” Percy stopped him, not fully satisfied with the explanation yet. “I thought that had to do with a fear of open spaces, or something like that.”

“It’s not the open space that does it for me,” Nico patiently explained. “It's... you know. Having to deal with all that by myself with no way out. People looking at you weird. That kind of thing.”

“Oh,” Percy stated, slowly getting the concept. Being in full panic-mode, alone and surrounded by uncaring people _did_ sound terrifying to him. “I get it. Sort of.”

“It's okay if you don't,” Nico spoke then, seemingly relaxing again. “I don’t get ADHD.”

Percy huffed out a small laugh. “Man, I don’t get my ADHD either.”

The other looked at him then, a corner of his mouth turned up in a small, amused smile.

Percy smiled back, getting up from his chair and placing the joint inside his backpack, in its designated tiny box.

“You better clean that up now,” Nico remarked, and Percy eyed the crumbles of both tobacco and weed on the desk.

He chuckled. “Sure, _Ghost_King76_ ,” Percy smirked.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Nico ordered, rolling his eyes.

When he had finished cleaning, Nico had proposed to finish another couple of matches to better both his waiting strategy and long-distance attacks. Percy wasn’t complaining at all. On the contrary, he gladly accepted both just to have an excuse to experience the game on the huge screen that was Nico’s computer and to spend a little more time at his house. Nico seemed to have gone back to his usual, detached self, ordering Percy around (or, at least, trying to) and bombarding him with both very good advice and pointless critics. Percy tended to just laugh it off, even when Nico would send him to hell for the, quote, “idiot noob shit” he tended to do when he was too excited to patiently analyze his enemies’ movements.

Despite Nico’s dead-seriousness about the whole thing, Percy did recognize that he wasn’t taking it as seriously as he should have. He knew fully well what the implications of that request were, and he knew how important that was for Nico. It seemed like a very serious matter for him, and he didn’t want to either disappoint or making Nico lose trust in him.

But, right then, he still had too much going through his mind. He needed it to be clear for him to hope to concentrate enough on what he was doing, to understand what actions would have brought him to victory.

“I’m not even sorry you died,” Nico suddenly commented, sitting beside him with a sour expression on his face after Percy’s fourth time losing before even reaching third place. “You deserved it. Who the fuck runs through a fucking open field alone like that?”

“Man, just leave me be,” Percy sighed, abandoning his controller on the desk and observing the loading screen that would lead him back to the title screen. “You’re not even playing, I’m not concentrated enough. I’m not in my best space right now.”

“Then forget about competing in any way,” Nico grunted, giving him a harsh look. “If you can’t do it here, you won’t be able to do it in a gaming arena.”

Percy looked at him, surprised.

Shit, he would have really liked to be in one. Entering from those automatic screen-doors, surrounded by computers in this huge gaming hall, full of flashing colors and with people announcing his team’s name. That would have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

He couldn’t miss something like that.

“I’m telling you, I just have to get used to playing in a place outside of my room,” Percy explained, turning towards Nico on the tall chair. “I need some kind of motivation to hype me up.”

Nico raised an eyebrow at him, scoffing. “I’m not buying it.”

“Dude, I swear, you think I do this stuff at home?” Percy pushed on, looking as earnest as possible. “I’m not an amateur. You know I’m not.”

The other looked at him up and down, exhaling from his nose.

Percy felt scrutinized, to say the least.

It was the truth, though, and he bet that if only Nico had been there every time they weren’t playing on the same team, he would have fully agreed. Raising his eyebrows, though, he came up with a possibility to make it happen.

Percy opened his mouth to speak, but Nico suddenly cut him off, putting a hand in front of his face. “I swear if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking…”

“Why don’t you come home with me?” Percy asked anyway, before stopping himself because, hell, did that phrase sound extremely weird. “No, I mean… why don’t you come and see for yourself? Your dad’ll be out tomorrow anyway, right?”

“Did you even get _something_ out of what I’ve told you before?” Nico snapped, crossing his arms and getting up from his chair. “What part of ‘I don’t want to go out’ you don’t understand?”

“Would anything change if someone’d be there with you from start to finish?” Percy inquired, looking at Nico heading towards his phone on the black bed. “I mean, you don’t like being alone, I get it. You wouldn’t be alone if you’d come with me, though.”

Percy regretted saying those words as soon as Nico’s icy stare met his eyes from a distance.

“I’m not coming,” the younger boy stated, articulating every word slowly and surely. “Now, another match.”

He let Nico’s authoritarian attitude get on his nerves, getting annoyed.

Percy knew the other had no particular reason to not even try.

He now knew about his issues, but was still perplexed and frustrated by the fact that Nico didn’t seem to realize that nothing about his fears was rational. The images in his mind did sound scary and, from what Percy understood, he had already experienced something that had confirmed his worst scenarios. Still, Percy didn’t believe in avoidance as a solution. There was no way in hell he was letting Nico get away without first recognizing that.

“What makes you think you won’t have any problems playing in an arena?” Percy questioned, purposefully trying to be as direct as possible.

He saw the expression on Nico’s face drop from surprise to an angry scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If there’s a possibility I won’t be able to give my all because I won’t be in some familiar place,” Percy explained, calmly. “Then there’s also a possibility your anxiety won’t let you be present long enough to conclude a match.”

He knew those words could hurt. The familiar feeling of not being good enough, of being your own worst enemy towards your best goal; he was used to all of that. He knew for a fact that Nico may have not been that used to that, though. Being an asshole was in that moment the only way in which he could hope to convince the other of how important it was that he started to work on breaking down those walls that were keeping him locked outside of the wide world and accept that his fears made sense only in his own head.

Still, Nico’s dumbfounded look as he stared at his phone’s screen was telling Percy that maybe, just maybe, that realization had started to kick in. The sharp lines of Nico’s jaw became more evident as he placed his phone in his pocket and walked straight out of the room.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Nico almost growled, his voice lower than Percy had ever heard it.

 _Shit_.

He had crossed a line.

“Wait, Nico…” Percy stuttered, getting up from the chair and hearing the bathroom door shut and lock behind Nico’s back.

He remained still, trying to pick up any other sound. There was nothing except for what sounded like running water, and he sat back down, slowly. He ran a hand through his own messy, tangled hair that he should have cut probably at least a month before.

“Shit…” Percy whispered again, staring at the wooden floor beneath his socks.

He had definitely gone too far, him and his stupid-ass mouth and stupid tongue that always spoke before thinking about the consequences. Flashbacks of guilt and regret came to his mind as he felt something knot in his stomach.

Suddenly, a thought came to him in a familiar realization.

What was he even doing? Was it fun for him, insisting and pushing on Nico’s soft spots until he eventually ended up damaging something? And why was he even so stubborn when it came to winning a discussion with him?

Who the hell was Nico for him, anyway? he thought, fidgeting with the sleeves of his own hoodie. The answer was a friend, of course. But if that was the case, then he couldn’t grasp the reason why he was treating him like someone he cared about. He didn’t think it had to do with him being his teammate. That didn’t make any sense to him, since he would’ve had to treat Jason the exact same way otherwise.

But he wasn’t, treating him the same way.

Then, why did he even bother? he wondered again and, barely a few moments after, he heard the running water stop.

He stood up suddenly then, staring at the corridor and the white bathroom door. Some seconds later, he heard the door being unlocked, Nico walking out.

There was silence as the younger boy walked towards the entrance of the room, stopping against the door frame. He crossed his arms as he stared at Percy with what Percy recognized was almost his usual, severe stare, but that was somehow covering up everything that was lying underneath.

Percy simply knew he was looking at a mask.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Nico questioned, clearly and concisely.

Percy didn’t even need to think about the answer. “Sure,” he replied, a bit taken aback.

“Then swear you’ll be in my team,” Nico commanded, still staring at him icily.

That question was almost too easy, Percy thought as he imitated Nico’s posture, crossing his own arms on his chest. “Okay,” he declared. “I’ll compete with you.”

Nico nodded once, slowly. That mask didn’t fall, still.

“Let me speak with my dad first.”

And, though the swirling thoughts and guilt were still running from one side of the other of his brain, Percy smiled. “Great,” was his only reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple of final notes:  
> yes, Nico has a Hatsune Miku figure in his room. know that I am extremely (not) sorry for that.
> 
> also, I feel like I should point out that, despite me having my own pretty set of issues, ADHD and agoraphobia/panic disorder are not included. so, if you're a person that instead suffers from those conditions and you feel like something is inaccurate in the way I portray them, you're more than welcome to let me know. 
> 
> lastly: pls don't smoke. in Italy especially there's this shitty smoking culture where people start getting addicted at 12 yo and never stop. it's just extremely normalized and it's not okay. Percy and Nico here just have unhealthy habits they'll have the chance to grow out of.
> 
> stay safe! see you in the next chapter


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i'm very late. chapter's long. uni's back and killing me slowly again. updates will be slow and i cannot guarantee them to be regular, but i really hope you'll enjoy this chapter. it was honestly my favorite to write, like i had already suspected. please enjoy!

After their last conversation, Nico put some effort into convincing his dad to let him go.

Percy could fully understand his father’s point, though: being escorted to another city by someone whom your son had just met in person didn’t seem like the best idea, especially considering his issues with being outside in the open.

So, he was more than pleasantly surprised when Nico, after a half-yelled telephone conversation in the living room that had lasted more or less twenty minutes, announced that he had obtained permission to go. They had been an extremely lucky occurrence though, Nico had claimed, since his dad’s next stop the next afternoon would have been New York City for some other work-related meeting. “No way in hell he would’ve let me go otherwise,” Nico had said as he scrolled through other restaurants on his take-out food app.

Percy still had no idea why Nico's dad seemed to be so protective of him in particular, while he had let his daughter take off to another, faraway country at barely eighteen years old. But, he suspected it had something to do with Nico's mom and Nico's own problems. Percy couldn’t imagine how being the younger boy's parent would have been like. And, considering the tones of their last phone conversation, it clearly wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Or perfectly shaped caskets and pretty cemeteries. Whatever they considered nice.

Despite that, Nico had explained that the times in which they had both been angry at each other were actually quite rare. That one had just been one of their “usual” conversations. Percy still struggled to fully believe that, but he managed to keep that thought to himself for once.

So, the only thing left to do after they had eaten some pizza (just Percy) and some spicy chicken wings for Nico (which Percy found out to be one of the other’s favorite foods), was for Nico to grab some bag in which to put the stuff he would have needed for the night and head out.

As Percy watched Nico almost obsessively check whether all the doors and windows were locked, and waited for him to gather his stuff while waiting in the living room, he had the chance to look around and notice a finely decorated vase in a corner of the living room, placed on a small cabinet. It kind of looked like his granduncle’s ashes inside Percy’s grandaunt’s bedroom.

“So, you noticed?” Nico suddenly questioned, appearing under the living room’s arched entrance, making Percy almost jump from his seat.

“What?” He questioned, frowning. He pointed towards the vase. “That thing?”

“I told you my dad’s weird,” Nico mentioned, staring at the thing. “We can go, anyway.”

After Percy had looked to Nico and then back at the ornament, the puzzle pieces seemed to come together. He stopped, mouth half-open. “Oh.”

“Yup,” Nico spoke, turning around and swiftly heading towards the door. “Are we going or not?”

Ignoring Nico’s last comment for the sake of his own peace of mind, he got up and threw his own backpack on his shoulders. “I didn’t expect you to be this excited to go.”

“I’m not,” Nico coldly commented, opening the front door. Percy just grinned while looking at him and walking outside, the sky tinted by the colors of dusk.

As soon as they managed to get out of Nico's house, Percy could notice the expression on the other’s face not being quite right. He was scanning his environment like a dog who had just got out of its cage; but not in a happy way. Percy knew he was probably starting to worry – but when did he not?

So, he smiled encouragingly, looking at the younger boy beside him. “So... you ready?” he asked.

Nico just looked up at him, nodding in probably a more confident way than what he was really feeling. That was enough for Percy, though.

They started walking, Percy jumping from step to step and off the porch. He walked the narrow stone path towards the sidewalk, already eyeing the direction from which he remembered coming from. Apparently, Nico already knew his way too, walking in front of him at a quick pace, which Percy did not appreciate.

He placed himself to Nico's side, trying to ignore the aura of nervousness that the younger one was basically gushing from every pore. Percy hadn’t thought about ways to calm him down, even though, he remembered, he had the full potential to be a skilled soother. Being surrounded by ten high teenage boys at a party had made him fearless when it came to quieting people down when not in their right mind. Eventually, he would have known what to say. Nico's anxiety couldn’t be that different from his own anxiety, he thought.

But, the more minutes passed, the more Percy started to worry. The boy seemed jolty, and he was quiet. Eerily quiet. The kind of silence that is almost unnatural between two people. Percy tried to initiate conversation, but Nico's answers were shorter than usual, which sparked in him even more concern. There was no way it could be good, how hard Nico was gripping the straps of his backpack.

“Hey,” Percy started then, tired to pretend he was ignoring the obviousness of Nico’s nerves. “Nothing’s gonna happen. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

It did sound way more convincing in his mind, Percy realized as soon as he saw the unchanging expression on Nico’s face become even more rigid.

“Yeah,” Nico replied forcibly, staring forward. “I just know there’s going to be a lot of people, and...”

“Don’t think about that now,” Percy interrupted him, smiling sideways. “Trains are not gonna be that packed when we arrive. I don’t even think there’s gonna be a lot of people on this one.”

He didn’t apologize for interrupting, but it was already evident that reasoning was going to go nowhere. Nico’s anxiety was there for no reason at all, and Percy was determined to convince him that nothing about the world could be that bad to make one lock himself up in a house and never step outside.

Nico nodded once, which was probably just a sop. Percy, then, decided to ignore and just hope for the best. The boy was not getting worse, still, and no signs of a panic attack were approaching. That was more than good, he thought, and he too was starting to worry about nothing. He had heard anxiety could be contagious.

So, he did nothing but trying to distract him – which he managed without effort, considering how much he liked to talk nonsense all the time.

When they arrived at the station, ticket paid and as they were heading for their platform to Penn Station, Nico did still seem normal. For his standards, at least. Percy did sometimes have to repeat his name twice to attract Nico’s attention, but everything else seemed quiet. Just a bit joltier than usual, but Percy was sure it had to be normal when having to do with anxiety issues.

They hopped on their train after Percy’s debriefing on the fact that they could have got off at literally any stop, should Nico start feeling worse, and that “nothing bad was gonna happen”, like he had stated for the maybe tenth time since they had left the house.

Luckily, a couple free spots were still available on their coach, and Percy immediately caught the chance to sit down on the window’s side after he made Nico sit beside him facing the corridor, as the other had requested. He still seemed tense but, at least, he wasn’t staring at nothing anymore. He was attentively looking around himself, Percy following his gaze trying to understand what he was so busy searching for.

“Are you…” Percy started then, looking at one of the glass doors in front of them. “Looking for a way out?”

“No,” Nico rushed to reply, his voice low. Then, he stopped, looking at Percy for a split second and sitting back on his seat. “I’m not…”

“There should be a bathroom somewhere too,” Percy stated then, looking around and trying to glance behind the glass doors. “I think it’s in front of us…”

“It’s behind. In the middle,” Nico pointed out, murmuring like he had said that phrase many times already in his head. “I checked.”

Percy then looked at him, eyebrows raised. He was impressed Nico had taken the time to memorize the precise location of the bathrooms. Still, he took that as a sign that he was feeling worse then Percy had thought.

“Okay, great,” Percy replied cautiously. “We should be there in an hour, more or less. I’ll be with a headphone on if… y’know.”

“I don’t remember asking for a service worker,” Nico muttered sourly, placing his backpack on his lap and extracting a Nintendo and some headphones from the front pocket. “You can put on both.”

Surprised by the coolness of the last answer, Percy frowned. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Christ, _yes_ ,” the other replied, frustrated, plugging the headphones in the small console. “I’m fine.”

The doors closed, and that distracted Percy enough to not let the irritation rise up from his stomach.

It was fine, he thought. Nico was probably very stressed at the moment and clearly needed space. So, he sucked in the annoyance before he could utter out something other than an “Okay, whatever.” After plugging in his headphones and resuming one of his own games, he had already forgotten about the exchange.

During the trip, it would happen that he would notice some small things about the other boy; like the fact that he didn’t seem to sit still. Percy thought _he_ was the one moving a lot but, noticing how Nico’s legs seemed to not find any rest along with his hands, even as he was playing, made him aware of the jerky movements he sometimes saw in his peripheral vision. Sometimes, though, all Percy did was looking out the window and admire the almost-night sky out the windows, and that felt good.

When the time came to gather their stuff and get closer to the doors, Nico seemed to fall into that slowed-down state he had been in before getting on the train.

As they walked towards the doors, him in front of Nico leading the way, and stopped in front of the metal entrance, Percy noticed how the other boy’s hands were now almost evidently shaking. Even holding the backpack’s straps, they were still clearly not under Nico’s total control.

Nico noticed Percy staring, and tightened his grip, making them almost stop.

“We’re basically already there,” Percy started, caring enough to keep his voice down to avoid calling any other attention to themselves, which he knew Nico hated. “Also, I know where the bathrooms are in here. I had to almost swallow my own puke once ‘cause I couldn’t find them,” he kept going, feeling the train stop beneath his feet. “Never forgot it again.”

That made Nico glance at him with disgust on his face, which Percy interpreted as a sign he had managed to distract him for at least a second; a sign he wasn’t totally gone yet.

The train came to a halt, the mass of people outside waiting just outside the doors. As those opened, he walked out, followed by Nico. He could feel the other behind him as he opened the way for him towards the stairs that would have led them towards the exit. As he calmly walked the path towards them, he saw Nico standing beside him.

Or, at least, that was his initial thought.

“Hey…” Percy started, looking to the mass of black hair to his side.

He was met with the quick, questioning stare of a man, probably not much taller than Nico himself.

As Percy stopped on his tracks, letting the man pass him, he turned around confused.

Nico wasn’t behind him. He tried looking around, going against the current of people who were directed towards the exit, but he couldn’t see anything that reminded him of the younger boy.

No black clothes, no backpack, no messy black hair.

 _Shit_ , he thought, and somehow stopped himself from panicking. He started going back, nervously looking around and calling Nico’s name. All the bad scenarios started playing in his head as he prayed to anyone (literally any God he could remember) for Nico to know how to read signs and to have his phone with the sound on.

As Percy swiftly took out his phone from his pocket, he stopped beside a massive grey column.

His eyes caught something in their peripheral vision and, as he turned around to look, he was met with Nico’s terrified gaze directed towards the floor. A hand covered his mouth, and even though the chatter around them made Percy’s hearing far from optimal, he could clearly see the pace with which Nico’s chest was rising and lowering, which was everything but slow.

He was hyperventilating in the middle of Penn’s station, face white as stone, and tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

“For fuck’s sake, Nico, I thought I lost you,” Percy let out as he walked in front of the other, grabbing him by his shoulders with a firm grip. “What the hell happened?”

The other just shook his head, a hand over his mouth, and he still could not look Percy in the eye. Right then, Percy allowed himself to panic.

“Nico,” Percy called then, struggling to remain calm himself. “Nothing bad’s happening, that’s just anxiety. You have to breathe.”

He noticed Nico’s shoulders rise and stop for a couple of seconds before lowering again, and took that as a great sign. He smiled from relief. “Great, that’s great,” Percy stated, keeping on holding the other’s shoulders. He was mindlessly stroking them, just out of habit. “Now, we need to find a quieter place. The bathrooms are just down those stairs behind you. Can you walk?”

Nico’s gaze rose to meet his, and Percy thought he looked like some animal in a cage, ready to be slaughtered.

He did not like what he saw. The other just nodded, shaking and still breathing way too quickly and too noisily for it to be effective, but Percy considered that more than enough. At least he wasn’t fainting.

“Great,” Percy repeated, slowly helping the other to stand up straight. He placed an arm around Nico’s shoulders and held him up as they started to walk towards the stairs. The relief he felt when he noticed the majority of the mass of people who got off of their train being gone was nothing like he had ever felt.

Despite that, the fact that he could still feel Nico’s breathing (impossibly) quicken was still not a good sign. The only remotely comforting thing was that Nico still seemed to understand his instructions and wasn’t screaming as Percy had experienced with his own anxiety attacks. The boy was handling it surprisingly well, for Percy’s standards. But, maybe, it could have been because his own standards weren’t that good in the first place.

“Remember to breathe,” Percy stated as they were walking down the stairs, a bit jerkily since Nico seemed to actually not know where to put his feet anymore. “That’s the best thing you can do right now.”

He could spot some people looking at them, glancing and frowning, but he was glad they still didn’t look like they actually needed help because he could bet that would have been the definite end. Percy had no idea how Nico could react to a stranger approaching, but his best guess would have been to start going berserk even more.

Scanning their environment, he luckily spotted the visible icon of the toilets on a sign above their heads. Great, he thought, we’ll be there in no time.

“Fuck,” he heard Nico whisper over his own heavy breathing. He brought a hand to his face, covering it, the following exhales coming out shakily, similar to sobs.

Percy quickly turned his head towards him, cluelessness all over his face, still keeping him close and almost forcing him to keep on walking. “What is it?”

“I can’t feel my arms,” Nico struggled to say, and Percy tried his best to hide his own terror from his voice as he spoke.

“That’s…” he started, really trying to look like he was keeping it together. “Uh, I bet you’re fine. It’s hyperventilation. You just have to sit down somewhere.”

Percy was more than ready to just pick Nico up and walk like that until they would have entered the toilets, but he sure hoped that to just remain a remote possibility.

He saw Nico nod then and, Percy had no idea how, but they had managed to enter the station’s male bathrooms what had to be a couple minutes later. As soon as Nico entered the sterile white room, he basically ran towards one of the stalls, locking himself inside. Percy heard him sit down, and he vividly hoped he did not sit on the floor because that looked as unsanitary as it could get. Adding to the fact that he could still hear him panting behind the door, that whole situation was all but relaxing for himself, too.

As he laid against the door, he did the only thing that was still in his power. Meaning, talking.

“Hey,” Percy talked against the door, always trying to be discrete and ignore the look a random, professional-looking asshole threw his way before heading out. “You hear me, right?”

All he could hear were sighs and what sounded like sobs. But, at least, if he was crying, that meant that he wasn’t about to fall down and faint and hit his head and possibly die, right?

“Nico, just keep breathing,” Percy stated, looking at the floor and concentrating on any other sound from behind the door. “Take your time. That’s just a panic attack.”

Nico kept on not answering, but, at least, Percy could now hear the sobs subside. He couldn’t know if Nico was just trying to be quiet or if he was effectively managing to calm down, though. So, he tried to remember some suggestions from his own anxiety attacks. They had a completely different cause, though, so he was all but sure those same techniques could work for the other too.

Also, he had to get inside to even try. He absolutely didn’t want to risk Nico either fainting, hurting himself or who knows what else. The silver lining in all of that was he had finally got the reason why some school bathrooms didn’t have a lock.

“Hey, listen,” Percy started, carefully and with the calmest tone he could manage. “If you don’t want me to come in, that’s fine. Just unlock the door so that if something happens I can be there, yeah?” He didn’t hear anything from the other side except the usual struggling noises, so he knocked a couple of times and asked again. “Please, Nico?”

A couple of torturing moments later, he heard the lock click and the sign outside the door flash green again. He exhaled a breath he didn’t remember holding and leaned against the door again.

“Thank you,” he stated, fidgeting with his own hoodie. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine,” the other said, out of breath and with a tremble in his voice. “It’ll go away.”

“You don’t have to say you’re fine, man,” Percy replied, because he’d had enough of Nico pretending to be okay when he clearly wasn’t. Why the hell was he doing that for anyway? “That’s not helping you get better for sure.”

He hard silence again from the other side, and felt frustration crawl up towards his head from his chest; and he was not really known to handle frustration very well.

“Okay, this might be a bit sudden, but,” Percy started, tapping lightly on the door. “The thing that helped me the most with my attacks was to have someone there, y’know? I don’t wanna force anyone, though. So, if you don’t want to…”

Percy stopped, trying to listen for any feedback from the other boy. He didn’t hear anything, except for the sole of Nico’s shoes touching the hard floor.

“If I let you in,” Nico muttered, sourly, and Percy had no idea who he was angry with. He just hoped it wasn’t him. “Will you stop talking?”

Percy could do that. It sounded like a fair deal.

He made a face while answering. “Sure, ghost boy.”

“I _told_ you to stop calling…” Nico sighed heavily, which Percy bet cost him quite a bit of air he didn’t have. The other gave up on what he was trying to say, which at least seemed to stop his heavy breathing for a second. “Whatever. Open the door.”

And Percy did.

As soon as he peeked inside, he was met with Nico’s figure sitting on the border of the lowered seat of the toilet, back against the wall, and his face covered by his hands. Percy looked at him with concern as the other boy hunched forward and placed his elbows on his knees, his arms and shoulders still apparently shaking and his hands moving locks of hair away from his face in an annoyed gesture.

Percy got inside the stall and closed the door behind him, laying with his back on the closed door. He observed the other holding himself with his arms and caressing his hoodie with one hand, head low, and staring at the floor.

Nico really did look wrecked. And Percy was finally starting to feel the guilt kick in.

“Um…” Percy started, before remembering their deal. “Oh, right. Sorry. No talking.”

“Thank you,” Nico grumbled in between breaths, which were now becoming steadier and no longer seemed the ones of someone who’s about to die from suffocation. He was still randomly sobbing, though, which did very weird things inside Percy’s stomach.

He consciously knew he wasn’t supposed to go there and comfort him in any way possible, but that didn’t stop his mind from begging him to do so. Also, he had no idea what exactly could comfort someone like Nico. The guy seemed to only play horror games, was surrounded by death and blood all day, and didn’t seem like an affectionate person at all.

Hugging him for comfort would have probably resulted in a punch in the jaw, in Percy’s mind. He didn’t want to be soothed with words either, though, so that left even fewer possibilities for him to feel both better about himself and like he was actually helping.

Just as he was thinking that, though, Nico moved of his own. He picked up his backpack from behind him and started searching for something in a small pocket.

Percy frowned. “What are you…”

“Music helps,” the other answered briefly, panting, grabbing some wireless airphones from the pocket. “Sometimes.”

Right, that makes sense, Percy thought.

He remained quiet as he watched Nico placing them in his ears and grabbing his phone, trying so hard to ignore the streaks of tears down the boy’s cheeks and the redness around his eyes and nose. Failing miserably to do so, an even tighter knot formed in his chest. Nico closed his reddened eyes and placed his head on in between his knees (as Percy should have told him to do as the first thing), not even glancing at him.

Percy was pretty sure at that point that the guilt forming inside him probably had a reason, and it was the fact that he had forcibly dragged his supposed friend outside the safety of his house, all for the selfish desire to make his rescuing fantasies come true. Now, he was met with an overwhelming sense of blame, frustration with the realization that he had definitely not been the most suitable person for that situation, and the feeling that he had just ruined whatever relationship he and Nico had just formed. And, in all honesty, that would have just been way easier if only he felt allowed to touch Nico. That constant distance between them was seriously making him lose his mind.

With a quiet sigh, he observed as Nico’s breaths slowed down, bit by bit, and listened to the small sobs disappear. Even the tremor in Nico’s hands seemed to quiet down the more he just sat there, listening and self-soothing.

Percy’s mouth finally turned up a bit, thinking about Nico’s musical tastes. He would have imagined some death metal or gothic rock stuff that he usually would avoid when feeling even a slight bit anxious; he could imagine that Nico’s head probably worked pretty differently from his own.

After what seemed like a too-long amount of time, Nico had definitely stabilized. He raised his head, quickly and nonchalantly dried the remaining tears on the corner of his eyes, and removed the headphones from his ears.

Percy then stopped him, putting a hand forward. “Wait,” he started, raising his eyebrows. “You can keep them on if you want. Until we arrive home if it helps. What do you say?”

Nico finally looked at his hand then, and then back at him. He lowered his gaze almost instantly, pressing his lips together before regaining his usual, stoic expression.

“Right,” he spoke, his voice firmer than before. “Okay.”

He put the small airphones in his ears again, and probably lowered their volume before getting up from his seat. As soon as Percy saw him stagger on his feet, he instinctively held him up grabbing him from beneath his arms. “Woah, careful there,” he warned, looking at Nico’s feet. “Blood hasn’t reached your brain yet instead of your lungs.”

“I’m fine,” Nico grumbled, gaze low and stepping back. Percy released him from his grip, and it felt like he had just burned his palms. “It should be over now. We can go.”

Percy was sick and tired of hearing that phrase. “Nico,” he spoke, looking at the other in the eye. It was really weird for him, being this serious, he realized as the other glanced back at him. “Like hell we’re going if you’re not feeling good still. I’m not risking you collapsing on York Ave.”

Nico then diverted his gaze again, closing his backpack for good. “I told you I’m good,” he insisted. “I’ve seen way worse.”

“Then drink something, at least,” Percy warned, and damn, would his mom be proud of him for being so responsible. He removed his backpack from his shoulders, zipping it open, and removing a huge metal bottle from its bottom, handing it over to Nico without hesitation. “Here. No way I’mma make you walk out like this.”

Nico then looked over at him again, and Percy recognized what he could only define as confusion, or surprise, in his eyes.

He did obediently grab the bottle though, after a brief second of hesitation, before opening it and drinking enough for Percy to be satisfied. After that, Percy put the bottle back in its place, closing the bag and throwing it over his shoulder. He looked at Nico then, the contours of his eyes still a bit pinker than the rest of his face, his dark circles still in place, and eyebrows slightly frowning.

After feeling his heart skipping a beat for a reason he couldn’t quite identify (probably since he had finally started feeling like Nico was there with him again), he smiled and turned around, opening the stall’s door.

He froze for a second as he registered the looks of two middle-aged men who had just entered the bathroom, realizing just then what that may have looked like.

But, since the two simply looked at them up and down before going back to their own business, Percy was able to remove that image from his mind relatively quickly. As he glanced towards Nico, though, he couldn’t help but notice the color on his cheeks that seemed to clash with his unreadable expression. He also evidently wasn’t enjoying Percy staring with a grin on his face, because the icy stare he directed towards him as soon as they managed to walk out of the toilets made Percy almost feel guilty.

Almost.

So, Percy scoffed, looking forward and placing a hand around Nico’s shoulders; less because he genuinely felt comfortable to and more because he was momentarily terrified of losing him again in the crowd and finding him hyperventilating in a corner.

Nico didn’t complain, though, which definitely made things easier.

Hopping on yet another train didn’t seem like the best idea, but Percy was right now rushing to get back home as soon as possible. Night had fallen outside and, as they entered the train, Percy was still holding onto Nico and mindlessly monitoring the other’s breathing. During the short ride, he struggled not to stare at the other for fear he would start feeling unwell again; but, that didn’t happen. Everything seemed pretty standard and Nico seemed to actually be calm(er) for once.

It all probably came from the fact that he had just used most of his energies fighting a panic attack less than five minutes before, Percy realized with a twist in his guts. The guy must have been really exhausted.

Standing just beside the younger boy on the subway, he questioned why he hadn’t listened to him when he had tried to make Percy understand how randomly those things would happen for him. Now that he had seen how panic could reduce someone, his own meltdowns seemed much less of an issue compared to what he had just witnessed.

So, maybe, he had just involuntarily found out the reason for Nico’s dad overprotectiveness. He didn’t know what to think about that. Now it would make sense why, as a parent, he hadn’t let Nico get out of the house that easily. Percy still couldn’t understand why his dad didn’t seem to help him that much to overcome that fear; at least, though, now he could grasp the reason behind their earlier discussion.

He promised himself not to make any more assumptions regarding people’s families and mental health state as they walked out of their stop, near Queensboro Bridge. Keeping an eye on Nico and on the people escaping from the station (who, luckily, were much less in respect to the number he usually encountered earlier during working days), he allowed himself to speak again.

“Still fifteen minutes from here, more or less,” Percy mentioned, stopping for a second outside the station. “Or you wanna take the bus?”

“Walking is fine,” the younger one replied, grabbing his backpack’s straps and squeezing them. “Are you sure this’ll be okay with your mom?”

“Dead sure,” Percy assured, already starting to walk the familiar path towards his apartment. “She loves having people over. She gets to spoil them with cookies and cakes and stuff.”

“What kind of cakes?” Nico questioned, walking beside Percy on the sidewalk.

“Red velvet’s her favorite to bake,” Percy replied, smiling. “She makes it blue, though, ‘cause she knows I love blue stuff. It’s kind of an inside joke.”

Nico chuckled, and Percy had the pleasure to see the corners of his mouth turn up for the first time since they had walked out of his house. “That’s cool. My favorite is chocolate cake, though.”

“That’s Paul’s favorite,” he informed, remembering that fact from the first Christmas they had spent together. “He’ll have an excuse to make it, then.”

“Cool,” stated Nico, and Percy could hear he was smiling. At least a bit.

He smiled too, looking at the city lights in front of him and the cars speeding beside them on the main road in front of the stoplight. They crossed the street and took a couple of turns, Percy briefly commenting on the Hollywood-famous places they passed during their walk, which he knew from those _Family Business_ and the _Devil’s Advocate_ kind of movies.

They soon found themselves on the narrow road leading them in front of Percy’s tall apartment complex. Taking out his keys, which he had safely hooked to the loop of his jeans, he let Nico in before going up the stairs towards the door of his apartment, just out of habit. As Nico removed his airphones from his ears, Percy looked at him expectantly in front of the wooden door.

Nico looked at him then, lips slightly pressed together. As if Percy hadn’t noticed, the boy looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

Percy smirked then. “If you’re nervous, don’t be,” he reassured him, already putting his keys inside the lock. “You’ll love them.”

“I’m not…” Nico started, before Percy opened the door and stepped in, his mom already greeting him at the entrance, smiling brightly.

“Hello, dear!” She chimed, kissing him once on the cheek before seeing Nico’s figure standing on the doorway, removing his backpack from his shoulders. She distanced herself then and, smiling sweetly, she turned towards him, getting closer. “Oh, sorry, I’m still shocked by the fact that Percy actually came home on time and…” she started, embarrassed, before holding out a hand towards Nico. “You must be his friend. I’m Sally, and he’s Paul.”

“Hello there!” Paul stood up from the table chair, a friendly smile on his face while cleaning his hands on a kitchen towel. “What’s your name?”

Percy watched intently as they both stood in front of Nico, himself already undressing from his hoodie and observing Nico’s expression gain a kinder, more gentle expression as he spoke.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Nico,” he replied, giving them a polite, toothless smile and shaking their hands. “I hope it’s not a problem if I stay the night.”

“It’s good to meet you too,” his mom spoke cheerfully, looking at him with approval. “And don’t even think it’s a problem. I didn’t have the time to make your bed or to make some extra dessert for tonight, though, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Percy already ate cake this morning.”

“Aw, mom,” Percy complained in a sing-song way. “I only had half a piece.”

“Then leave the rest to Nico, if he wants any,” she ordered, glancing at Percy with a serious look that made him stop whining. She then turned to Paul. “Don’t we have those chocolate muffins too, somewhere in the fridge?”

“We should, yes,” he replied, already directing himself towards it. “I may have eaten the majority of them, though…”

“Are we sure he’s not your biological father?” She asked sarcastically to Percy, her hands on her hips and following an eye-roll. She then turned to Nico, an apologetic smile on her face. “There sure is something, though. Come in!”

Percy didn’t miss the flash of excitement on Nico’s face at the mention of chocolate muffins, which was swiftly covered up by his usual sternness.

“We actually already ate, but,” Nico started, closing the door behind him. “You don’t have to worry about it at all. I think I’m just gonna go to bed anyway.”

“Yeah, he’s right,” Percy agreed, thinking back at how much energy Nico must have spent just for that hour-and-a-half trip. “I’mma go make the bed. Paul can leave a couple muffins for tomorrow morning.”

“Are you guys sure?” She questioned, looking from him back to Nico. “We have plenty of stuff stocked up since these two haven’t been home the whole day. Just ask if you want anything.”

“Sure,” Nico nodded. The smile had faded, but the kind, respectful expression was still in place. “Thank you.”

She delivered him a sweet look, lingering on the younger boy’s face. Percy frowned slightly.

“Uh, love?” Paul suddenly called from the kitchen. “Were they on the first, or on the third shelf? I see the yogurt and the cheese, but…”

She looked towards the man then and sighed. “Try moving some stuff out the way, they should pop out!” She suggested, already entering the kitchen. “Percy, are you sleeping on the sofa?”

“No problem,” he announced, already strolling towards his bedroom. He invited Nico to follow him with a hand gesture before entering the corridor. “I hope it’s not too colorful for you.”

“Very funny,” Nico commented sarcastically, keeping up with Percy’s steps. “Why are you even sleeping on the sofa? I’m the one without a bed.”

“So _you_ usually make your guests sleep on the sofa?” Percy asked, smirking, as he opened the door to his bedroom.

“That’s not what I meant…” Nico stated before entering the room, looking around in silence.

Percy looked at him, half expectantly, half satisfied with the reaction. “Pretty different from yours, huh?”

“It’s…” the younger boy started, letting his backpack fall to the ground and walking towards the desk chair to observe Percy’s computer. “Blue.”

“That was the idea,” he proudly replied, hearing Nico pick up his controller from in front of the screen. In the meantime, he took out some new covers for the bed some clean pillowcase. “If you’re judging the quality of the computer, just remember you probably have more than double in your pockets than I do after my summer jobs.”

“Is there a time during the day when you stop being annoying?” Nico questioned sourly, and Percy chuckled, still focusing on the task at hand.

“When I try too hard for too long it just comes out by itself,” Percy explained, teasing. “But hey, I even tried to be comforting for once. I should get a gold star just for that.”

Nico’s expression darkened at that comment.

Percy’s smirk faded a bit, hearing the silence filling the room. “I meant…”

“Yeah, you managed,” Nico admitted, delicately placing the controller where he had found it. “Thanks,” he muttered, not meeting Percy’s eyes.

The older boy looked down at him, many questions still popping up in his mind like the slides of a PowerPoint. “So… you want to tell me what happened?” He questioned, soft but not unnaturally sweet, as he turned towards the now-naked bed.

Nico remained quiet, extracting his phone’s charger from the front pocket of his bag.

He shrugged lightly. “I just…” he started, voice low. Percy would have wanted to say Nico didn’t have to talk about it if he didn’t want to, but he remained quiet. He needed to know, at this point, for his own peace of mind. “I don’t know, it just happened. I panicked. Too many people, and I was scared since I wasn’t feeling that well already. And then it was just there,” Nico explained, somewhat vaguely, lowering towards the socket near the desk. “I don’t even know how I ended up there.”

So, Percy thought, there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. He didn’t know if that thought comforted him more than scaring him.

“I’m sorry,” he forced himself to speak, finally. “That was not exactly my best idea.”

“If you say you’re sorry again, I’m gonna punch you in the face,” Nico announced suddenly, looking at him with a stern look on his face. Percy put his hands up, pressing his lips together. That seemed to calm the other down. “It was fine. I know how to deal with it when it happens.”

 _It didn’t look like it_ , Percy was about to utter before he stopped himself at the first letter.

“Just forget about it,” Nico commanded. He looked towards the door, looking harsh. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Percy registered the request after a couple moments but managed to escort him to the bathroom just fine. He waited for the younger boy to finish from inside his room, bed made to the best of his abilities, and then exchanged places with Nico as he walked inside the room again for a change of clothes.

Then, as they were preparing to hop in bed (or on the sofa, in Percy’s case), Nico received a call. Judging by the eye-roll and the sigh that followed, along with the first few Italian words Nico spoke as soon as he picked up, Percy guessed that was probably his dad. The conversation was relatively calm, though, since he didn’t notice Nico yelling or expressing that much emotion.

Once Percy was sure the conversation was over, he walked over to the kitchen where Nico was laying against the counter and looking at his phone with a pretty annoyed expression.

“Was it your dad?” Percy asked nonchalantly, directed towards the fridge for his last cup of milk before heading to bed.

Nico shrugged. “Yeah,” he replied, devoid of emotion. “Why?”

“You don’t seem too happy about that conversation,” Percy tried, grabbing the milk and searching for a glass.

“When am I ever happy?” Nico stated, and Percy just looked at him with the most incredulous expression. Nico looked back then, raising an eyebrow and letting a small, amused smile appear on his lips. “I’m kidding. Stop staring.”

“Christ, I thought you were morphing into some edgy MySpace emo thirteen-year-old,” he replied, diverting his gaze and concentrating on filling his cup. “Not that you look _that_ different, but, y’know…”

“That’s an overly specific description,” Nico commented, placing his phone in his back pocket. Percy had to hold back a laugh. “ _Anyway_ , he said he’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. Right after lunch.”

Sipping on his drink, Percy stood beside him frowning. “And that’s why you’re annoyed?”

“It’s the way he said it that annoys me,” Nico replied, tone sour. “Like he’s doing me a favor when he’s the one who doesn’t dare let me out of the house alone.”

Percy hummed, placing the empty glass on the counter and putting the milk where he had found it. “And he does that because…”

Nico sat quietly for a moment. He shrugged slightly. “I think it’s because of my mom, at this point.”

Percy looked back at the younger boy, silence filling the room again. So, he had been right in what he had realized some hours before. Also, he was sick and tired of that small knot tightening in his stomach every time Nico would mention his mother.

“Right,” Percy rushed to reply, seeing Nico’s gaze getting lost on the floor. “Makes sense, I guess. You want anything to drink?”

The other shook his head. “I’m good,” he stated as he started walking towards the corridor.

Percy looked at his back as he watched him go, already dreading the thought of laying awake for another hour-or-so waiting for his legs to stop moving. He was about to say something else when Nico dismissively waved a hand towards him and, looking straight ahead towards Percy’s room, stated “Goodnight.”

“’Night,” Percy replied, still following the younger boy with his gaze. “Careful not to fall when you sleep. That’s not a queen-size bed.”

“Did _you_ ever fall?” Nico inquired, placing a hand on the door’s handle.

Percy frowned. “No…”

“No need to worry, then,” the other stated, turning around to look at him while raising a middle finger.

Percy smirked, and Nico closed the door behind him.

Silence filled the house, and the only light left was that of the TV in the living room. The dim lights from the street were allowing light to enter the house, creating a nice and cozy atmosphere that Percy tried to enjoy.

He laid on the long sofa and slipped under the covers, placing his head on the pillow and turning towards the screen. One of the favorite things his mom enjoyed reminding him was to never stay up and watch TV when he couldn’t sleep (reading was always better), but, since it was still a relatively early Saturday night, he didn’t feel guilty about ignoring her advice. He took out his phone, knowing Annabeth would have probably been awake either studying or watching her favorite documentaries on Netflix, and that meant he could chat with her and hope to fall asleep while holding his phone. The movie flashing on the screen was an old western that he had no will to sit through but, at least, he hoped it would have been boring enough for sleep to claim him. Because he definitely didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts and risk them to act like caffeine would.

Messaging Annabeth, he found out she was making herself some midnight snack and chatted with her for a while. He did mention Nico sleeping over, to which she seemed surprised she had never heard of him before. The realization that he had never mentioned Nico to Annabeth crossed his mind for a second, and his thoughts seemed to revolve around that for a brief while. Frowning mindlessly, he labeled that as simply “weird” before going back to their conversation about Doritos and guacamole not exactly being the best late-night snack.

After forty minutes had passed, Annabeth excused herself and went back to her Netflix marathon, and Percy left her to her own private time while staring at the TV screen. Some actors he didn’t recognize were evidently engaging in some kind of deep, end-movie monologue before the end credits started playing on the screen. He pulled the covers up and waited for the next movie to start, eyeing the clock on his phone that read around 12:00 A.M. Since he had nothing better to do anyway, he attentively looked at the screen, his mind already starting to fly somewhere else.

One thing still swirling in his mind was Nico’s issues with sleep. Percy vividly hoped he had gotten tired enough during the day to fall asleep peacefully and without struggle but, he knew, he was the one still not sleeping right then. He thought back at what Nico had told him earlier in Percy’s room, about random anxiety, Nico’s fear of people, and about the twist in his guts every time the other had mentioned his mother.

And, at that point, Percy finally managed to ask himself what exactly he had gotten himself into. And, more importantly, for what.

The doubts started to kick in again, creeping inside his mind. Was he seriously the right person to deal with the situation? Why had Nico stuck with him until then if, apparently, all Percy had to offer were some hesitant reassurances and not-that-good participation in his gaming team? Common guys like himself had no idea how to deal with that complexity. The boy seemed to be so far away from him and so not willing to take a step towards Percy that he was seriously starting to question what were they even doing at all. Even though they were and seemed, indeed, friends, Percy was all but comfortable at the thought of Nico actually _being_ his friend. It just couldn’t consider him the same as Jason, or Leo; he couldn’t talk to Nico about his romantic problems, and he had tried.

And, fuck, what was the last time he had even mentioned his girlfriend to him? Had he ever, really? And if so, why not?

He very well knew what friendship and brotherhood were. He also knew what relationships and love were or, at least, he really thought he knew, after dating Annabeth for two years now. The fact was, Nico didn’t seem to fit into any of these categories. It was pretty ironic, considering it was Percy who had declared himself Nico’s “friend” when they hadn’t even been that close.

He definitely had a lot of questions. In his mind, though, he found no answer whatsoever.

So, what he did was looking at the screen, trying to guess the title of the movie that started playing, and hoping it would distract him from his thoughts for a while. As he recognized the actors and the typical Hollywood special effects, he recognized one of the _Pacific Rim_ movies, which was comforting, to say the least. He adjusted on the sofa, laying down for good, staring at the screen and feeling the tension building up to the familiar point where the big, bad monsters would come.

His eyes started to burn at around twenty minutes in, and his eyelids began to feel heavy more or less ten minutes later. He was already seeing things and starting to block out the sound from the TV when a door creaked opened in the corridor. And, judging by the familiarity of the sound, he identified it with his own bedroom.

Not thinking much of it, he kept his eyes closed, unbothered, wanting just to finally slip into his dreams.

So, he was pretty surprised when the soft sound of footsteps reached his ears, making his eyes creak open and taking a rough look around.

“Didn’t know you drooled in your sleep,” he registered Nico’s voice saying, before forcing his eyes completely open and partially get up from his position with a jolt.

Feeling a wet stain on his cheek, he felt himself blush as he dried it with the back of his hand. He rubbed his eyes before looking at the younger boy, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Why’re you awake?”

Nico stood near the sofa, arms crossed, and studying the TV screen. “I can’t sleep,” he spoke, voice low. The roughness of his voice did something to his stomach he couldn’t quite identify. “I’m usually awake at this hour, so maybe that’s why…” he frowned slightly, pointing at the screen. “Is this the first _Pacific Rim_?”

Percy had to concentrate on the question before registering its meaning, struck by the lightness of Nico’s skin now that the only source of light was the screen in front of them.

He looked at the TV, then back at Nico. “Yeah, think so…” he replied, sitting up and moving over, inviting the other to sit down. “You wanna watch?”

Nico looked at him, pondering. Percy stared at him expectantly, eyebrows raised.

“Uh…” Nico stammered, looking back at the screen. “Okay. It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.”

“Great choice, ghost boy,” he commented, waiting for Nico to sit down to place his feet on the coffee table in front of him and cross his arms on his chest.

He expected Nico to protest at his last comment but, unexpectedly, he didn’t.

That made Percy glance at him again, finding the other in the same position he was in. He couldn’t tell if the younger boy was actually interested in the movie, or was just using it as a background while he thought. But, that was the thing; he could never guess what Nico was thinking. Not when he tried, at least. He could bet a fortune on the fact that Nico also wouldn’t have wanted him to. Probably ever.

The sofa was big, but Percy didn’t bother to move over to the other side. He hadn’t thought too much about it, since he enjoyed Nico’s limited warmth and felt so comfortable sitting close to him, but had to regret that decision when, half an hour later, he felt his head almost fall on Nico’s shoulder because he was seriously starting to feel too tired to even sit up properly.

In his half-asleep state, he heard Nico speak over the orchestral music from the movie. “Why don’t you just go to bed?” The younger boy asked, seemingly annoyed.

Percy didn’t want to answer. “Don’t want to,” he managed to mumble, closing his eyes yet again.

He didn’t know how much time had passed but, when he woke up, he found himself asleep where Nico had previously been, the TV shut down, and morning light coming in from the windows. A vague memory of his cheek pressed against something warm and that smelled like clean clothes lingered in his mind for a second. He buried his face in the covers a couple moments later, smiling absentmindedly as he fell asleep again, until he was woken up by the sound of chatter in the kitchen. Recognizing his mom’s and Paul’s voice, he slowly managed to open his eyes and sit up, rubbing his eyes already blinded by the rays of light coming from the opposite side of the room.

Getting up on his legs and stretching his arms, he walked barefoot towards the kitchen, smelling the delicious aroma of pancakes and butter.

“’Morning, champ,” Paul greeted, smiling, coffee mug in hand.

Percy replied with a wave of his hand and the biggest yawn, briefly kissing his mom on the cheek and grabbing the fridge’s handle.

“How’d you sleep?” His mom asked, flipping a sizzling pancake on the pan.

Percy hummed. “Okay,” he grumbled, taking out some mixed fruit juice from the fridge.

“That’s great, honey,” she started, turning off the fire on the stove. “’Cause I sure hope you didn’t forget Tyson’s coming over for lunch today.”

Percy stopped the contents of the glass in front of him from transferring inside his mouth, swiftly turning around to face her. Now, he was awake.

“What?” He questioned. “I swear you didn’t tell me!”

“I did tell you, but I didn’t make sure you’d repeat it to me since it was yesterday morning and you seemed to be busy thinking about something else,” she reprimanded, placing the pancakes on the plates Paul was holding for her. “But we would be very happy if Nico could stay, too.”

He finally managed to drink his juice before sitting at the dining table, looking at his mom still a bit disoriented. “Of course…” Percy started, contentedly remembering that Nico’s dad would have come to take him home only after lunch. “But that’s great, I haven’t seen him outside of school in ages!”

His mom smiled, sitting down at the table in front of him. “I’m going to make those burgers he loves.”

“And I was thinking about baking some chocolate cake,” Paul mentioned, his mouth full. He still managed to crack a smile. “I know it’s not your favorite, though. Can you forgive me for that?”

“Man, it’s no problem,” Percy mentioned, taking his first bite. He suddenly remembered what Nico had said the evening before, about chocolate cake being his favorite, and smiled. “I’ll help you cook if you want.”

Paul looked at his mom then, raising his eyebrows. “Sure, that would be awesome,” he replied, looking back at Percy again. “After lunch, then. I’m going to have to make some laundry and clean up the mess in the kitchen first.”

“Cool,” Percy concluded, and then focused on drowning the pancakes in blueberry jam and emptying his plate.

While his mom and Paul chatted about house chores, some images from the night before came to his mind. It was probably Nico who had turned the TV off, so he surely will have wanted to thank him for that. His mom had found him asleep on the sofa with the TV on too so many times they had both lost count, and it was never a pleasant experience for both of them. He had no idea how he had woken up upside down, though, and the one thing he vividly hoped was that he hadn’t fallen asleep on Nico. He liked to think the other would have woken him up if that would have happened, but he still couldn’t manage to shake off the embarrassment from it possibly being the case.

Also, it was already half-past ten in the morning, and Nico still wasn’t up and awake. Percy just hoped he hadn’t had that many difficulties sleeping, because he didn’t want to deal with a grumpy Nico first thing in the morning. But, honestly, when wasn’t he grumpy?

Just as he thought that, he caught some movement from the corridor in front of him with the corner of his eye, and saw Nico coming out of the room, rubbing his eye. Percy stayed still for a couple seconds, taking in the sight of the boy’s even messier mass of hair, sleepy eyes, and the large white t-shirt and short pants he had on that made him look like something Percy couldn’t describe. It just did weird things to his head, which he attributed to the fact that he felt like he was looking to a new version of Nico.

A younger, more exposed, and cuter version of him. The word “adorable” crossed his mind a couple of times before he could chase it away and forget about it.

He blinked twice to switch the focus on himself again before speaking, vividly hoping that Nico hadn’t noticed him staring with his mouth half-open, because that would have definitely been awkward. “Mornin’, ghost king,” Percy stated before clearing his throat.

His mom looked at him, frowned, and then turned around to look at Nico,

“Oh, good morning!” She cheered softly, smiling. “How did you sleep? Was the bed okay?”

“’T was fine,” Nico replied, voice raw from sleep, and Percy tried concentrating on his food more than anything else. “Thank you… are these pancakes?”

“Do you like them?” His mom asked, and Percy questioned if there was some alternative universe in which somebody could not like her pancakes. “I can make you some toast, if you want, it’ll just be a second…”

Nico quickly shook his head then, and Percy raised his head to look at him. He saw the polite smile appearing on his face again, and stared at the way his cheeks turned up and his deep-set eyes assumed that gentle expression that he was really not used to see.

“I like pancakes,” he started, sitting down at the table, a plate already placed in front of him. “It’s no problem.”

Percy felt the corners of his mouth turn upwards as he remembered the chocolate muffins in the fridge. “Wait,” he spoke, getting up from his chair. He came back a few seconds later, two muffins in hand. He placed one at the center of the table, and another one inside Nico’s plate as he sat back down again. “I remember you liking chocolate?”

Nico looked at him, and Percy couldn’t decipher the expression on his face.

He just grinned back, lowering his head on his plate again. “You better eat that before Paul vacuums it with his mouth.”

“Oh, come on,” Paul lamented, already finishing up. “You’re both making me look like I’m this chocolate-addicted monster.”

“You still haven’t proved to me you’re not,” his mom commented, looking at him with a sly smile.

Percy chuckled while looking at Paul’s indignant expression, and glanced towards Nico. The smile he had on his lips, Percy thought it was one of the most genuine he had ever seen him wear.

“Thank you…” the younger boy muttered beside him. Percy placed a hand on his head and messed up his hair even more in response, to which Nico grumbled something indistinct that made Percy grin while grabbing the last bite present on his plate.

As they all had finished up their breakfast, Percy mentally thanking his mom for not bothering Nico with questions on questions first thing in the morning, Nico offered to help clean up. Percy smiled at the request, and Paul was happy to allow him into the kitchen.

So, Percy gladly left them at their work while he started his morning routine. After showering, brushing his teeth, and putting on the few clean clothes he had left, he gave up the bathroom and bedroom to Nico.

Coming back into the kitchen, he found Nico with a coffee mug in hand, apparently conversing with Paul about school, because, of course, there was no way Paul would let the occasion to chat with someone about his work slide. Nico turned around to look at Percy and nodded before excusing himself and head towards the bathroom.

Paul’s satisfied smiled let Percy know that he had enjoyed the conversation, something which he had had no doubts on.

“He’s definitely a diligent kid,” the other commented, placing Nico’s cup inside the sink. Percy knew. “How did you two meet, again?”

“An online game,” Percy replied, starting his phone. “He’s so good at gaming, you have no idea. Killed my confidence with a couple matches.”

“Well, I guess he has time to practice,” Paul replied, crossing his arms on his chest. “He told me he’s homeschooled, but I can see he’s receiving a very great education. There should be more parents like his dad.”

Percy raised his eyebrows, opening his and Annabeth’s chat and replying to her good-morning text. “I bet he’s not that great,” he argued. “He doesn’t like him very much.”

“Sometimes it’s good to not like your parents, Percy,” Paul continued, looking at him with a knowing look on his face. In the meanwhile, he signaled for Percy to help him with taking out the necessary stuff for baking the cake. “Most of the time they’re just trying their best. I was mainly talking about education, anyway. It’s not every day you see a young boy speak three languages.”

“He does look very smart,” his mom chimed in, entering the kitchen already dressed up in her nice shirt and bell-bottoms, opening the fridge. Both him and Paul looked at her taking out all the necessary to cook. “And he’s very well behaved. His parents have done a great job.”

Again, Percy knew.

He didn’t need his parents to remind him to make his self-esteem lose some points every time he laid eyes on Nico.

“Yeah…” Percy agreed, before looking at her. “Speaking of that, don’t mention his mom. She…”

His mom raised her head, looking at him with a worried expression. “Oh,” she commented, going back to the lunch’s preparations. “That’s fine. You don’t have to explain.”

“Did she leave?” Paul asked, a sorry expression on his face.

“Paul!” His mom scolded him. “Gosh, don’t ask things like that.”

“Okay, okay, pardon me,” Paul rushed to reply, hands raised. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“Also, he’s very good-looking,” his mom continued, smiling and taking out a pan from the lower cupboard.

Percy glanced at her suddenly, feeling mentioned, somehow. “You think so?”

“Well, he’s not your typical handsome guy, that’s for sure,” she explained, mindlessly cutting some vegetables on the counter. “He’s got a certain charm to him, though. Don’t you think so, love?”

Paul hummed in approval, shrugging lightly. “Maybe it’s the Italian blood,” he spoke, patting Percy’s shoulder lightly and smiling before he was off to the laundry room, probably checking on the washing machine.

Percy was weirdly (even for him) quiet, staring at his phone’s screen and listening to his mom chopping an onion near the stove.

“Is something bothering you, honey?” She asked after she glanced at him for a moment.

He waited a couple of seconds before answering, having no idea how to reply to that.

He had no idea if something was wrong with him or not. Everything he was aware of at that moment was a kind of longing inside his guts, the kind that would make him easily frustrated and often thoughtful.

And, he knew it had to do with Nico.

“You know when there’s some itching on your back, but you can’t find the right spot to scratch?” He started, looking at her and crossing an arm around his chest and scratching his head with the other. “And you spend, like, more than you should on the wrong spot and all that.”

“I know what that’s like,” she replied sympathetically, glancing at him again. “Is that what you feel like?”

“Kind of,” he admitted, looking at the floor and shrugging. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to do something about it, though.”

She hummed, remaining silent for a while. Then, she stopped, looking at him.

He raised his gaze, meeting her blue eyes, partially covered by some curly hair locks.

She smiled sweetly. “Well, keep searching,” she replied. “When you’ll find it, you’ll know what to do about it, yeah?”

His mom always said stuff like that like she already knew what he was thinking; the fact was, Percy would have really liked to ask her what exactly she saw in his head at that moment because, from his perspective, everything had just been a blur for the last few days.

Despite that, he nodded, wanting that stream of thought to finally leave him alone and just think about the excitement about his half-brother coming over in a few hours.

In the meantime, when Nico had concluded his morning routine, they found themselves casually hanging out in Percy’s room playing NuOlympus, which had been the reason Nico had come all the way there in the first place. The younger boy sitting on the edge of the bed and observing him play, Percy realized how much his performance had improved from playing at Nico’s house. Applying the suggestions to his own usual playing style, in his familiar environment, he was managing to end up on the podium much easily. It wasn’t a matter of luck anymore; now he knew when to hide, when to attack, and when it was convenient to just leave most of the battle to his teammates. For the first time, he read excitement (and not frustration) on Nico’s face when looking at him play, and that felt like the best reward of all.

His palms sweating around the controller, towards the end of a match, he heard the doorbell ring.

“Oh, that’s my brother,” Percy mindlessly stated.

“Wait, your brother’s here?” Nico questioned, and his nervous tone made Percy frown.

“Yeah, he’s coming over for lunch,” he replied, begrudgingly leaving the match. He was definitely happy to see his brother, but the timing might have been a bit off. “Forgot to tell you. He’s a cool guy, anyway. He doesn’t talk much either, but he’s a sweetheart.”  
As he talked, he turned towards the other spinning around on his chair. His smile subsided when he perceived a slight, worried frown on Nico’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” was Nico’s quick answer before getting up. He started playing with his bracelets as he headed towards the door, and Percy had the feeling he had to say something.

“Hey,” Percy stopped him placing a hand on his shoulder, sensing an unusual amount of nervousness coming out from the other boy. “Chill. It’s really no big deal. He’ll like you for sure,” he continued, absentmindedly squeezing Nico’s shoulder before reluctantly letting go. “Just talk to him about Nintendo stuff or something.”

After that, Nico turned around to look at him. He looked at him up and down with the same cold, dark eyes Percy had come to enjoy in the past days. Percy raised his eyebrows as their gazes met, as to make his point clearer, and Nico’s lips pressed together before nodding.

“Okay,” he replied, visibly letting go of some of the tension in his shoulders.

Percy was satisfied with that.

He then opened the door, walking out of the room followed by the other boy, and directed towards the entrance. Chattering was already filling the house as his mom happily greeted the tall, imposing teenage boy that had just walked inside.

“Tyson, dear! Gosh, did you gain a couple more inches?” His mom cheered, careful not to be too loud. Placing her hands on his shoulders, Percy could see that she may have been right. He tended to not really notice, considering they saw each other pretty frequently at school. “Stop growing so much or you’ll hit the ceiling in a while!”

“I just grow very fast, Aunt Sally,” Tyson’s low, warm voice filled the room, and he gave her a side-smile, his silver braces showing. “I can’t stop.”

“I was kidding, dear, don’t worry about it,” his mom mentioned, smiling brightly.

“Hello there, big boy!” Percy chimed, opening his arms and walking towards the new presence in the room.

As Tyson turned his head to look at him, his smile became a wide grin. He mimicked Percy, spreading his muscular arms and wrapping them around him, squeezing Percy’s breath out of his lungs. “Hey, bro! How are you?”

The brown-haired boy waited for Percy to answer, but soon realized he had to let him go for his vocal cords to effectively function. So, he quickly let go, placing Percy on the floor again, still beaming.

“I’m good, man…” Percy managed to utter in a chocked voice before he had to breathe in some air. He grinned at his half-brother after a moment, used to the pain, patting him on the shoulder. “Are you feeling better?”

“I’m good now, yes!” The other announced, flexing his arms to prove his point. “See? Strong as before.”

“That’s great,” Percy smiled, turning around to look at Nico. He signaled for him to come forward and introduce himself, and almost chuckled at the shocked expression on his face while looking up at Tyson’s massive silhouette. “This is…”

“Nico,” the younger boy stated, covering the distance between him and Tyson and extending his hand towards the other. “Nice to meet…” he started before Percy could stop him, his voice dying in his throat when Tyson grabbed his hand and squeezed it as Nico had just initiated a tug-of-war.

“Hi! I’m Tyson,” the boy cheered, a smile still painted on his face. “Nice to meet you. Are you Percy’s friend?”

When he finally released his grip on Nico’s hand, Percy realized he should have probably suggested him _not_ to shake his brother’s hand since, even though he had gotten better with presentations through the years, he still didn’t seem to be aware of his own overwhelming strength.

When Nico simply shook his hand in the air, probably holding back a pained moan, Percy delivered him an apologetic smile before going back to greeting the younger, but still bigger, boy.

“Yeah, he’s my friend,” Percy replied in Nico’s place, leaving him some time to recover. “He likes video games too.”

Tyson’s eyes lit up, looking at the younger boy again. Nico’s expression, on the other hand, was all but relaxed.

“You like _Pokémon_?” Tyson questioned like a kid asking his mom for candy.

Nico hesitated, looking at Percy and then back at the brown-haired boy. “Uh, yes…”

“I like it, too!” Tyson cheered, and Percy just knew he was going to torture Nico for the rest of the day if he wouldn’t have intervened. “Do you like _FireRed_ better or _LeafGreen_?”

Percy waited for the time in between Tyson’s question and Nico’s answer to try and distract him. “Okay, big boy, why don’t we…”

“I actually like _Emerald_ better from the Third Generation,” Nico replied still massaging his right hand, capturing Percy’s attention and surprise. “And _Platinum_ from the Fourth.”

“Oh, that’s cool! I like _Platinum_ too! I played it five times,” Tyson continued, making a five with his hand. “Giratina is one of the best. He has the coolest special attacks.”

“Rayquaza’s better during battle, though,” Nico argued, in the same tone Percy knew too well by that point. “He’s got one of the highest attack stats.”

While their conversation kept on going, Percy turned towards his mom and Paul, who appeared to be just as dumbfounded as him. His mom, though, just looked at him with an amused smile on her face, raising her shoulders and giggling. Paul imitated her, an apologetic expression on his face.

Turning to look at his brother and his friend engaging in a heated conversation about legendary Pokémon stats, he felt clueless as to when to interrupt them without seeming rude. Still, that didn’t bother him a bit. Actually, it made him proud. His brother never had anyone with which to share his in-depth knowledge about random topics like weapons and 2000’s video games; Percy would have never guessed Nico to be the perfect conversation partner for him.

As they managed to move with them in the kitchen, his mom asked Percy to please set the table as she and Paul started prepping the food. He did as he was told, still listening to Tyson and Nico’s discussion, that seemed unaffected by everything else happening in the kitchen. Even at the mention of Tyson’s favorite burgers for lunch, his only reply had been a “Thank you, Aunt Sally!” before directing his full attention to Nico again. The younger boy also didn’t seem to mind, looking like he was not only conversing out of habit and good manners, but because he was actually enjoying the topic. Remembering those _Pokémon_ stickers on Nico’s bedroom door, Percy smiled. Of course Nico would know everything about it, he thought. He was still yet to find a video game to which the other was clueless about.

When food was finally ready and the smell of cooked meat permeated the kitchen, the two ended up talking about _Pokémon GO_ , and Percy bet if only Nico had actively played that one too they would have ended up chatting for at least another hour. Luckily, the fact the younger boy didn’t really like the outdoors deprived Tyson of the possibility to keep going.

They all sat down at the table, and ate the juicy burgers his mom had prepared, complete with cheese and sliced tomato and ketchup (or barbecue sauce, in Paul’s case). They all feasted happily, Tyson being more than enthusiastic to taste one of his favorite foods again. Percy smiled while talking and throwing a teasing comment here and there that, as usual, his brother didn’t get. Nico ate silently, and Percy imagined he had already spent all his energies on the previous conversation. The few small smiles he delivered during the lunch were tired ones.

Percy caught every single one of them from the other side of the table.

As they finished eating, they all got up and helped with the cleaning up as Percy and Paul checked on the state of the cake in the fridge. Having no internal sense of time, when Nico’s dad called him notifying of his arrival just outside Percy’s building, right after the had managed to swallow half a piece of Percy and Paul’s cooking, something dropped inside his stomach.

“Sorry, gotta go,” Nico mentioned, suddenly in a rush, placing his phone inside his pocket. “I’ll take my stuff.”

“I’ll come with you,” Percy quickly commented, drying his wet hands with a kitchen towel.

“You’re going already?” Tyson vocalized, turning towards Nico. “When will you come back?”

The younger boy exchanged an awkward look with Percy, turning back to the taller, wider boy sitting on the sofa in front of the TV.

“He’ll be back soon, right?” Percy answered then, not giving Nico time to think. He grinned at his brother, and the brown-haired boy did the same.

“Hurray!” Tyson cheered, his big, brown eyes shining. “Next time, we’ll play _Pokémon Platinum_ on my Nintendo, yeah?”

Nico’s mouth turned up a small bit, nodding. “That’s fine for me.”

As Percy looked at Nico pick up his things from the bedroom floor and put them in his purple backpack, he observed the younger boy’s movements and how he carefully rolled his phone’s charger up; the same thing he did for his Nintendo DS’s charger. His black bangs kept on falling in front of his eyes as he looked inside the bag, probably checking if he had forgotten something. Percy just laid there against the door frame, arms crossed, following him with his eyes, unable to leave the room or even say anything.

If Nico noticed, he didn’t complain. Suddenly, though, Nico zipped up his backpack, turning around to look at him. “I think I’ve got everything,” he announced, throwing it over his shoulder. “If not…”

“You’ll have it back next time,” Percy interrupted, feeling himself smiling softly.

Nico stopped, meeting his eyes.

The tiny smile he delivered to Percy made the green-eyed boy skip a beat.

As they escaped the room, he walked behind Nico, his eyes refusing to pay attention to anything else apart from the boy in front of him.

Both his mom and Paul found Nico near the door, waving him goodbye and all those other pleasantries Percy so dreaded every time. Percy’s turn to say goodbye consisted of him waving goodbye to the other boy, promising him he would have been online for at least one match that evening.

Looking at Nico’s black eyes, some locks still half-covering them and smiling, he followed his movements as he closed the door behind him.

He was aware his mom was looking at him with a sympathetic look on her face, but he didn’t bother hiding his quick pace as he walked all the way up to the windows in the living room, pretending to casually glance out at a black, old-style Chevrolet parked just outside their building, looking at a mass of black hair heading inside on the backseats and closing the car door.

His eyes followed it as the driver started the car, traveling down the road towards the Bridge.

“Are you okay, bro?” Tyson’s voice reached his ears, waking him up from his strange, in-the-clouds state.

Percy turned around to be met with concerned, genuine brown eyes, and grounded himself in the present again. “Yeah, sure. Why?”

“You look sad,” the other spoke. “I don’t like it.”

Percy felt exposed. But, still, he did nothing much to cover it up.

“No way, big boy,” he teased with a grin. “Do you want me to show you how to play _Fortnite_?”

Tyson quickly changed his expression when he mentioned the game, jumping up from his seat on the sofa and following Percy to his room.

They played for a while and, close to dinner time, his dad came to pick Tyson up. He caught the chance to say hi to him and his wife, smiling throughout the whole meeting. He left Tyson in their car, waving goodbye, and walked back upstairs where Paul was getting ready to cook dinner.

As he entered the kitchen, the house felt weirdly empty and almost too quiet. A hollow feeling sat in his chest, but he tried to ignore it as much as he could.

“How are you feeling, dear?” His mom asked, and he looked up at her from the kitchen entrance.

He didn’t know. He didn’t even want to think about it. So, he shrugged.

She looked at him with the same look as before, when he looked at Nico walk out the door.

“You know you can talk to me about everything,” she told him, still sitting at the table. “Doesn’t matter what.”

“Right,” he muttered, cracking a small smile. She nodded.

“Now, why don’t you help Paul with the cooking?” She suggested, going back to her usual, cheerful tone.

“Don’t I have to study?” Percy hesitated, feeling a familiar sense of dread wrapping around him when he thought about homework. “I got a test in two days.”

“I know,” his mom agreed. “Try to study, then, before dinner. Then you’ll have some more free time.”

Percy smiled widely then, nodding and promising to do as much as he could.

After dinner, his mind was already so exhausted he didn’t seem to concentrate on anything else apart from one particular swirling thought.

Nico had notified him he wouldn’t have been online, since his dad had ordered him to cramp up the study hours he had skipped during the weekend all in one evening. Percy didn’t feel like gaming anyway, he thought as he let himself fall onto the bed which had already been changed by his mom. As he laid his head on the pillow, though, a familiar smell reached his nostrils. A peppery, delicate fragrance that he couldn’t mistake for anything else apart from Nico’s hair.

He rolled around in bed, his face directly pressed onto the pillow, and moaned in frustration. And, just as he felt sleep creep up onto his mind, he thought that he could have finally found what he had been looking for.

He resisted the urge to indulge in his doubt any longer, and let all the feelings he had refused until then submerge him as he dreamed of a certain black-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> six chapters just for Percy to realize his crush. who hates slow-burn? (i do)
> 
> since i like final notes, another thing i'd like to say is that i never lived in ny. but did i spent hours trying to locate Percy's apartment (and Nico's house) in manhattan? yes. does this compensate for my lack of experience with american culture and nyc's locations? no. so please excuse me if there are some evident inaccuracies. feel free to point them out so that i can correct them later.
> 
> thank you SO much for leaving comments/kudos/simply adding a hit? it really means a lot to me. i would have never imagined people actually reading the gay shit i usually keep deep inside my mind.  
> you can also fin me on [tumblr](https://thenewcancro.tumblr.com/) whenever you like!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello there!!!!! finally!!!!! my god was this fucking difficult to write in between all the assignments and lectures and life. I won't be long, just here to tell you that many things have happened in this chapter, but Percy-Nico interaction is not one of them and I'm sorry for that. you'll see why, though. 
> 
> I really, really hope you'll enjoy it regardless.  
> (thank you so much for leaving kudos/comments. thank you. they help me keep my motivation up so much)

May was approaching and, with it, his mom’s expectations for him and his study results. Paul was an accomplice of that too, being the principal he was (though luckily, not at his own school).

They both wanted him to keep his options open, which he would have been more than glad to do, had it been an easier task. But, since college was something he was definitely not going to like, as everybody already knew, he was extremely reluctant to envision it in his future.

His friends still looked at him weird when he would mention his parents pushing him to do something with his intellectual skills, putting his brain “to good use”. His dad had been the only person who had always made it clear that it would have been alright if Percy were to end up working in some shitty McDonalds’ if it meant he was in the direction of doing something with his life.

Nobody was asking him what he actually felt he could do.

There might have been many, many things that led him to repeatedly lie to his mom about studying in his room and, instead, gaming until late at night and falling asleep on his chair a couple of times.

One of those reasons had been Nico. And that didn’t fail to bother Percy.

When the realization that he was technically spending more time talking to Nico than to his girlfriend hit him one night, his whole world seemed to sway right in front of his eyes for at least the tenth time from the start of the month.

How easy it would have been to stick with what he knew, and what other people would have liked him to do: keeping Annabeth with him, get decent grades on his SATs, working like crazy during the summer to put something aside for college next year, earning a degree in anything he wouldn’t have had an even harder time studying, and consequently winning at life.

Someone was keeping that door open for him, and he could have done it. It would have been so _easy_. He had always liked easy stuff; the smoother, the better. Because everything had the tendency to feel overly complicated to him.

He tended to notice the slightest details, all the time, at the same time.

He did not have the slightest idea why he seemed to be screwing it all up just then.

It was, probably, because he felt trapped, and that tournament could hit him like a breath of fresh air. Probably, because his dreams had nothing to do with any of the dreams of the people around him. And, probably, because he was listening to his gut maybe a bit too much, finding it incredibly difficult to let go of the person he was now thinking about more frequently than he would have liked to admit.

Still, his conscience was keeping on talking him out of it, commanding him to please stop believing life was an exciting game he had to play.

It was no game. It was all boring as hell, and he had to walk and talk by the rules.

And so, he tried. He was somehow managing to fit it all in his life, being a diligent student before evening, and a training gamer at night, while neither of the persons involved seemed to be aware of the other’s existence.

His parents and Annabeth didn’t know why he seemed so tired lately, and tended to blame it all on the effort he was putting in his studies. He did collect a couple of C+, which did cheer him up. Along with that, though, they did also made him fall into a dense sense of despair.

By the third week, he was falling asleep in class. Not that it hadn’t happened before. Just, this time, it wasn’t him who had decided to let his head fall on his desk. Honestly, he suspected his teachers had started to understand the situation, being softer than usual with him. But, somehow, they still just managed to pressure him even more. Deadlines were approaching, college wouldn’t wait for him, all that stuff. He ended up needing more help completing his assignments because he was procrastinating literally everything he was supposed to do.

He started procrastinating gaming, too. And that scared him. While being in a match, everything seemed fine. Nico had become stricter now that the stakes were high and the date of the first online tournament was drawing nearer. In regards to that, Percy still had no idea who their third squad member would have been. To be honest, he didn’t even know if he was supposed to search for one.

So, he had been surprised by Nico’s call while longboarding, heading towards the library to pick Annabeth up for an evening out that Friday. Tired as he was, though, he wasn’t used to feeling this low at the perspective of hanging out with her. That felt strange, and he wondered if that too had to do with his evident crush for Nico.

Not minding the fact that he wasn’t paying attention to the street in front of him anymore, he quickly answered the call, his heart skipping a beat.

“Man, are _you_ actually calling me?” Percy greeted him as a grin formed on his face. “Is it gonna rain?”

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again,” he heard Nico reply on the other side, blatantly annoyed. “It was urgent and you’re not reading my texts.”

“Oh,” Percy hesitated. Was he really that distracted to not even feel his phone vibrate in his pocket? “Oops, I guess. My fault. What’s the deal?”

“I just found our third member,” Nico explained. “One of the best I could find, actually. She’s 28PLUTO on Twitch, don’t know if…”

“Wait, _what_?” Percy interrupted him, for a number of reasons. “How the hell did you manage to find her? I saw a couple of her streams, she’s insane. Is she the one with the Hera character? Man, seriously, how – “

“If you can just shut up, I can tell you,” Nico replied, managing to make Percy shut it. “I didn’t actually found her. We know each other.”

“And you never fucking told me?” Percy inquired, more excited than actually annoyed.

“I did,” Nico stopped him again. “I thought I already told you she’s my cousin.”

Percy came to a sudden halt, hammering his left foot on the ground and stopping his longboard from traveling any further. “ _What_?” He asked, again, extremely confused. “But how…”

“Are you seriously going to ask that?” Nico luckily stopped him before Percy could ask one of his idiotic questions. Percy silently thanked him for that. “Anyway, she’d like to know you tonight. Will you be on?”

Percy stared at the road in front of him, the library right at the end of the street and then to the right.

He had no intention to drive back, even though a voice in his mind was begging him to turn around and make up some credible excuse. That would have been an even worse move than last time, though. Also, he was now dedicated to his double life. He repeated to himself all over again how he had to commit himself to his and Annabeth’s relationship if he even hoped to get Nico out of his head for the majority of the day. There was literally no positive long-term reward for him if he would have decided to turn back and give up his evening date. And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to see her; he was just feeling relatively tired for his standards, and he wasn’t in the mood of participating in her very interesting, but very demanding conversations about historical movies inaccuracies.

He could have gotten through those with ease, though, if she would have allowed him to smoke his weed on the way to their dinner place.

“Uh…” he pondered, forcing himself to turn down the request. “I’d love to. Like, really love to, but I’m on my way to a date and I won’t be home until late,” Percy continued, kicking a pebble with his worn-down shoe. “Is tomorrow okay? I’m free anytime.”

He waited for an answer which, initially, didn’t come.

He frowned, listening to the silence on the other line. Just as he opened his mouth, he heard Nico speak again.

“Yeah, that’s fine too,” the other replied, tone absent. Like he was talking to no one in particular. “Sorry, I was… reading something. See you tomorrow then.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Percy replied, eyebrows raising at the sudden goodbye. “Bye.”

He soon heard the closing tone of the call, looking at Nico’s name on the screen disappear with the calling screen. Left kind of confused, but not that much to bother with thinking about it, he threw his phone back into his pocket and regained his run towards the elegant building at the end of the street.

As Annabeth walked out, still wearing her reading glasses which Percy adored and that she always refused to keep on for her fear of breaking them, they started walking towards a Thai restaurant on Manhattan’s West Side. It still was one of Annabeth’s favorite places to be after long hours of study, and Percy was pleasantly surprised to find her particularly happy, that evening. She had started to save up enough money to feel comfortable at the thought of traveling to Europe soon, and her grades were as good as they could be. Percy couldn’t ignore the way her eyes shone as she talked about the different Universities she had applied to and how they all seemed so different, more “vintage-looking” in respect to American ones, how she couldn’t wait to experience what was like to live alone for the first time without having to watch over her brothers and having to do with her stepmother’s tantrums and fights with her dad which, as Percy knew too well, always managed to get a toll on her.

As their food started to arrive at the table, she asked him how everything was going instead, with his own studies. When he managed to interrupt himself for the third time while talking, she looked at him with a sympathetic look on her face, a hint of worry in her eyes.

“Percy…” she started, tone sweet. “Are you sleeping okay? Is something going on?”

And at that point, he had to hold himself back from telling her because that would have been of absolutely no use whatsoever. He just wanted her not to worry, and he honestly was starting to hope everything would just go back to how it was before he had started to play _NuOlympus_. No thoughts about a certain guy in his mind, no SATs approaching along with his decision to (or not to) get that goddamn degree, and not any nights spent comparing his double futures while always preferring to dwell on the one involving being in gaming arenas around the country until he would have been satisfied with all the money that could result from his winnings.

“Everything’s good, wise girl, no need to worry,” Percy replied, a reassuring smile forming on his lips. “I’m, like, probably gaming more than I should. It must be that.”

“Percy, I know you cannot help it sometimes, but…” she continued, placing her fork beside her plate. “Is it really necessary? Gaming when you know you spend more than half of your day just studying?”

“That’s not the point, babe,” Percy spoke, a mouthful of food still on the fork approaching his mouth. “I need some release, y’know? I cannot keep on building up pressure until I implode from all that damn American History and Maths stuff. I’d be banging my head against Mr. Brunner’s desk by now.”

She just kept on looking at him, nodding slowly before concentrating on her own food again. “Yeah, I get it,” she commented. “Is it really worth it, though? Wouldn’t sleep be a better hobby?”

Percy glanced at her then, his shoulders rising slightly. “I know myself well enough. Shooting at stuff is better than laying in bed tossing and turning ‘cause my legs won’t stop moving,” he joked, even though it didn’t really make him laugh. There was so much he wasn’t telling her, it just wasn’t sitting well with him. “Also, I can’t hang out with anyone anymore. Everybody’s all busy and head deep into that damn college stuff. At least I can talk to someone on there.”

“Right,” she concluded, tightening her lips for a brief second. “I’m sorry I can’t help you that much anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” Percy replied, a small smirk on his face. “I’ve already forgiven you.”

She eyed him then, confused at first until she saw his expression. She huffed out a laugh, which made him chuckle in return. Nevermind the fact that the sound had reminded him of someone else whom, from that moment on, Percy would realize was popping up in his mind at regular intervals during their evening, just like a drop from a loose faucet.

They talked some more then, Percy noticing how much his own speech was lacking that usual sarcasm and liveliness that he didn’t realize had become so familiar to him by that point. Annabeth seemed to notice that too, though, since she ended up proposing him to just head home right away to get some rest. That had sounded pretty good to him, so he had agreed without complaints.

As they arrived home, Annabeth under one arm and his longboard under the other, they both went straight for Percy’s bedroom after both saying hi to his parents. Annabeth had borrowed one of his XL t-shirts to sleep in, and Percy was in the bathroom washing his teeth, humming to some damn Ariana Grande pop song stuck in his head from the whole day. Annabeth announced she was going to lay down, to which he simply nodded twice before resuming his own nighttime routine.

Definitely not managing to stand still, he walked towards the bedroom with her, directed towards his dresser to choose something comfortable to sleep in. She was already laying down with a small book in her hands and those cute, thick-framed glasses on (to Percy’s joy) when she frowned for a brief moment.

“Did you change your shampoo?” She asked casually, to which Percy looked at her, confused.

“Nah, why should I?” Percy spoke, a mouthful of foam in his mouth. “The one I got’s good enough.”

She somehow managed to understand his blabbering. “Your pillow smells like black pepper, so I thought…” she continued, and Percy froze in the middle of the room. “You’re right though, that doesn’t sound like you,” she chuckled lightly, resuming the reading of her book.

Percy quickly excused himself to return to the bathroom again, basically running out the door. He spat what was still in his mouth in the sink, washing it away quickly and staring as it sank down into the drain, realizing he had completely forgotten to change the pillow with Nico’s smell still on it.

It wasn’t that big of a deal, though, he repeated himself. Why should it have been a problem? It was not like she was jealous, or something. And it wouldn’t have even made sense for her to be jealous even if she would have found out, either. He was still as straight as a ruler anyway in her eyes, that’s what she knew for sure. She didn’t have to know about his male crush.

Still, it felt so absolutely wrong to just leave it and make her sleep on there. It made his conscience itch with an unfamiliar sense of guilt. And it was not the guilt that was unfamiliar, but the reasons why he was feeling it that were totally out of place.

It was not like he had slept with Nico. Of course, he may have fallen asleep on him once, and he may have dreamed about him more than once, but he wasn’t the only one that happened to be in Percy’s dreams and he for sure wasn’t the only other person he had enjoyed being physically close to. Nothing could beat what he still felt for Annabeth, he was sure.

But being sure, evidently, wasn’t enough for his thoughts to stop revolving around that little detail. So, he ended up thinking about excuses he could use to change that damn pillow cover in the least weird way possible. The strangest element about that whole situation was simply his reluctance to make both Nico and Annabeth aware of the other’s existence. It felt like he was almost hiding them from each other, but that couldn’t be it. There was no reason for him to. None he could think of, at least.

Grabbing that last thought and pinning in on the front of his brain, he casually walked out of the bathroom. He opted for telling her he was embarrassed to make her sleep in a bed he hadn’t changed in two weeks (which wasn’t true; it was purely for his argument’s sake), and managed to get out of his own sense of guilt with ease. His heart ached slightly as he removed the pillow’s covering and threw it into the laundry, but he tried not to think too much about it. He also commanded himself not to feel like he was disrespecting someone by doing that.

When he walked to the bed and slid under the covers with Annabeth by his side, though, his thoughts managed to calm down as he took his usual position, his head on Annabeth’s belly and an arm around her hips as she kept on reading, resting a hand on his hair and gently stroking them while untangling the knots her fingers found on the way.

Despite the faucet still dripping in his brain, he managed to calm himself down enough to tell himself that everything was going to be alright if he could just hang on a little bit more. It would pass, he told himself. No need to be that worried about a crush; he could bet everyone had random crushes in relationships. Not acting on it would have been good enough. Annabeth didn’t need to know. Nico didn’t need to know, either.

He didn’t know which of the two possibilities he would have disliked more.

He fell asleep without realizing, waking up the morning after refreshed for the first time in days, and finally energetic enough to spend an actually nice morning alone with his girlfriend talking and cooking breakfast and leaving a thousand kisses on her cheeks and her shoulders, while both Paul and his mom were outside for shopping.

Before lunch, though, she was already out the door since she had promised her dad to be home for the rest of the day. Percy let her walk out reluctantly, kissing her on the lips again on the door as he had gladly done many, many times. Almost too many, and he had no idea why. It wasn’t like he was forcing himself to. Just, it impossibly felt more like an apology to her since he still felt bad, like he had done something really wrong.

Closing the door behind her as she walked out, he stared at the door for a couple of moments before his mom, back with her purchases, called him from the living room table.

“Are you feeling better?” She asked, smiling as she was reading one of her magazines, Paul already fiddling around in the kitchen cupboards, waiting to start cooking.

“Yeah, slept well,” Percy replied, throwing himself on one of the table chairs. “I did some laundry yesterday, anyway. It should still be in the dryer.”

“I saw that, honey. That was really kind of you,” she spoke, looking at him. She looked up and down at him, then went back to her reading. “Are you still worrying about what you have asked me last time?”

He glanced at her, then, eyebrows raised. He looked towards Paul, then back at her. “Uh…” he started, hesitant. “What if I kind of am?”

She raised her head for good then, placing her magazine on the table and hunching towards him on the table. Then, her gaze met Paul’s. She pointed to her ear, to which he pressed his lips together and sighed. “Alright,” he accepted, taking out some earphones from his pocket. His mom waited for him to connect them to his probably-twenty-year-old mp3 and, when they both started to hear a faint classical rock song coming from the kitchen, she turned back towards him with an expectant look in her eyes.

That communication had been so smooth that Percy had almost been jealous.

Now, though, met with his mom’s wise look, he felt uneasy realizing he couldn’t hide anymore.

“Honey, can I ask you something?” His mom questioned, to which he nodded, slowly. He was still sincerely afraid of what was to come but decided to just tear up the band-aid and get over with it.

In the end, he thought, his mother was still the only person he considered knowledgeable enough to maybe explain to him what might be going on. Because he still hadn’t put the pieces together. And, in all honesty, he had no idea what he was supposed to do anymore by that point.

“Is it something that has to do with Annabeth?” She asked, joining her hands together on the table. “Or with someone else?”

Percy stopped to ponder, hesitating. “It’s…” he tried, breathing in. “Kind of both.”

She nodded, slowly, her blue eyes staring right at him. “Percy…” she started, and it was almost weird for him to hear his own name escape from her mouth so seriously. “I might be wrong with this, yeah? But you seem scared of something. You’ve got that sad face you’d have when we would be spending the summer in Montauk and we’d come home after a month,” she continued, a corner of her mouth turning up. “I’m your mom. I don’t like to see you like that, so, if there’s something you need help with, you can talk to me about whatever that is. Alright, honey?” She concluded, raising a hand to caress his hair.

Percy pressed his lips together, and his leg started bouncing up and down without him realizing. He diverted his gaze from her, thinking about what to say.

She had probably already gotten some understanding of the situation. Maybe she didn’t know about there being somebody else involved, but she knew it was taking a toll on him. He could imagine it had been pretty evident, and it wasn’t like he had desperately tried to hide it, anyway. He just couldn’t. Thinking about Nico daily was starting to confuse him more and more, until his head had become nothing but a mush of school notions and responsibilities, just to block out whatever he felt he wasn’t allowed to feel right there and then. That, and his gaming project his mom still knew nothing about.

He was hiding too much from the most important people in his life, and that didn’t sit well with him. White lies were one thing, but this had been like omitting almost half of his life (and, as scary as it was to admit it, also the best part). He needed to get it out, somehow. To anyone.

“I…” he started, not entirely sure how to put it. “It’s just a mess, y’know? I just feel guilty all the time, and…” he sighed, stopping. He couldn’t say it.

His mom kept on observing at him, head a bit tilted to the side in a sympathetic look. “So, is it about someone else?”

Percy nodded, reluctantly. He looked at Paul, who seemed to still be clueless about the whole conversation, swaying in front of the kitchen counter to his songs while not hearing a word.

“Is it Nico?” She asked, and his eyes widened as he swiftly turned back towards her.

“How…” he questioned in a murmur, completely dumbfounded.

She giggled. “Percy, I’m just your mom. And I’m not blind,” she told him, to which he felt a sense of anxiety rising in his chest at the possibility that Paul might have already realized that, too. “Don’t worry, dear, I know you. It doesn’t mean it’s _that_ evident, but it would be difficult to hide it from me, if you know what I mean.”

“So could you guess or not?” He rushed to ask, keeping his voice low just in case. He could feel his own face twisted in a nervous expression.

“Well, you’ve got that look when you see someone you like,” she explained, placing a hand on one of his, pointing at his eyes. “You’ve got those sweet eyes. And you always talked so well about him, and when you would casually call someone late at night or you would always rush to your computer when you would get a text. So, I figured there maybe was somebody you really enjoyed spending time with,” she continued, slightly shrugging her shoulders. “And then you let him come here, and you did all those small things like helping Paul bake a cake, and keep those muffins for him. And then, when he had to go…”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Percy stopped her, feeling himself physically cringe. Especially with her mom’s sweet voice making it even mushier than it needed to be. “I’m just a kind person, mom. The fact I remembered chocolate cake being his favorite after chocolate cookies doesn’t mean _that_ much.”

She was listening to him with her eyes full of irony. “Yeah?”

“Jeez, mom, why’d you have to…” he moaned, covering his face with his hands. He could feel blood rising up to his cheeks as he sighed deeply, resisting the urge to run straight to his room and bury his head into any game he could think about. “I feel like shit.”

“Don’t,” she replied, her tone suddenly severe. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’ll figure it out eventually.”

“I don’t know how to!” He snapped, removing the safe covering from his face. “I can’t just leave her, that’d be insane. I don’t even know if he likes me. Not that it’d matter, I wouldn’t leave her anyway, y’know? Yeah, I mean, she’s going to Europe and I’ll stay here and we won’t see each other anymore, so that’ll be hard as fuck, but I can’t just give up on…”

“You’re thinking too much,” she interrupted him, squeezing his hand in hers. “I mean, I’m glad you’re thinking about this since people’s feelings are involved. You’ve been doing amazing so far, but maybe you’re overdoing it a bit now,” she continued, staring deep into his clear green eyes. “It’s what you’re feeling that counts, right now. Just figure that out, and you’ll be one step closer to the solution.”

He sighed silently, breaking the eye contact that was becoming a bit too much for him to handle. His mom had the power to make him see inwards, but the times in which he hadn’t liked what he had seen were not just a few.

“What if…” he tried articulating, hoping Paul wouldn’t hear now more than ever. “What if I like them both the same? Is that even possible?”

She stopped to think, humming, scrutinizing him while slowly stroking the back of his hand. “I don’t think you can love two people the exact same way,” she finally replied, shrugging lightly. “There’s always going to be one taking up more space than the other in your heart. But that, you only realize with time.”

That wasn’t helping him, he thought.

He was now terrified of finding out he loved one of them more than the other, having to let the other go for his own sake. And keeping on going like that wasn’t doing well for him, at all.

“What should I do, then?” He questioned, feeling disheartened. “Keep on ignoring this until something pops up and hope I don’t seriously hurt anyone in the process?”

His mom frowned, looking at him with confusion that turned into an understanding expression. “Percy, you don’t have to ignore anything,” she explained. “They will understand. These things happen. And if they don’t understand, well… you’re better off without them, yeah?”

It was his turn to stare at her then, wires reconnecting in his brain. “Yeah,” he admitted, lowly. “I guess.”

“Is this all?” His mom asked, still attentive.

He hesitated, because he had to admit it did feel pretty good finally talking about his spiraling thoughts once in a while. Especially when they were plaguing his day and nights with dreams he was waking up from feeling guilty from having.

Despite that, he ended up nodding slowly, refusing to acknowledge his desire to voice every single thought connected to his feelings for Nico and the tournament and college and how much he had been smoking lately.

She mimicked his gesture, letting go of his hand and getting up from her chair, ruffling up his hair and finally smiling. “The heart wants what it wants,” she stated, starting to walk towards the kitchen counter.

“Ew, mom, I’m not some teenage girl,” he lamented, rolling his eyes and getting up from the table himself.

“You’re right,” she agreed, opening the fridge. “You’re a teenage boy.”

“Mom!” He lamented, sighing heavily and directing himself to his room while hearing her chuckle in the background.

Closing his door behind him, he eyed the books on his desk exhaling noisily again before throwing himself on his rotating chair. Surrendering to his responsibilities, he opened his American Literature notebook, going through the notes he still needed to shove into his thick skull to hope to pass his next test. He thanked himself for having left his phone in the other room with his mom, safe from his own impulses, and to have turned off the computer just the night before because he would have never managed to complete at least half of what he still had to do that Saturday. His head almost spinning from the letters playing a ring-around-the-rosy on his page, he went back to his mom after dinner, overly thankful to be set free. He closed the door behind him as he entered his room again with his phone in hand, throwing himself in front of his computer.

Already fidgeting with his controller, he opened his Discord app and swiftly scanned the page for his and Nico’s chat. Seeing him online, he smiled without even being conscious about it. As they started chatting, Nico invited him to play right away, the match already starting.

This time, though, it wasn't just them two anymore, just like Nico had promised. Someone with a Hephaestus character had just joined them, and Percy felt his heart accelerate when he read “28PLUTO” on the top of the character's head. He could barely contain his excitement when about to land on the game map, with Nico weirdly choosing a place as far away from the others as possible.

As their characters were being released from the skies, a female voice reached his ears from his headphones.

“Hey there,” 28PLUTO spoke, and Percy put all of his energies into sitting still and try to not to be the annoying one. “You must be Percy?”

“Speaking,” Percy replied, feeling himself grin from the fact that Nico had evidently already talked to her about him. “It's so good to meet you, man, you're amazing. Had I known sooner that you two were cousins I would’ve asked for you to be on our team right away.”

She laughed, and it was the most adorable, happy giggle he had ever heard. “That's so sweet! Thank you,” she replied, and Percy finally managed to notice how Nico didn’t have his mic on. He frowned, but tuned back into the conversation just in time before she started speaking again. “I'm Hazel, by the way. It's nice to meet you, too.”

“That's a great name,” Percy replied, landing on the map next to them and starting to run towards the closest shack to loot.

“Thank you, man!” She spoke, and Percy could tell she was smiling. He melted a little inside. “Nico told me you've got some good skills. I tend to trust him, but I wanted to judge for myself…”

“Sure,” Percy agreed before she could finish, which he didn't feel good about.

“… Do you mind me throwing a bit of a curve at you?” She asked.

Percy raised his eyebrows, not expecting the question. “I mean, sure. Depends on what you mean.”

She giggled again. “I like to do this thing where I follow people for a whole match to see how they do,” she explained, and Percy noticed her pointer on the map already approaching his. “Just to check. This would be my second tournament, so I kind of know what to look for. You in?”

Percy pondered for some moments.

Not only he wasn't in his best shape at the moment, apart from being distracted by her simply being present: did he also have to have her following him around, inspecting his every move to conclude if he was worthy of being on the team?

That didn’t sound particularly fun. It did sound more like one of his swimming classes, with his instructor yelling at him from across the pool to move his ass and breathe in like he had instructed him to do.

Still, he couldn't really politely decline when it was her asking. He sucked in a breath. “Uh, sure. No problem at all,” he lied. “What about…”

“Nico?” She interrupted, the same way Percy would finish other people's sentences for them. “He'll be fine. He knows what to do already.”

“Oh,” Percy commented, his character running towards yet another box. “Good, I guess. Then just enjoy the show, man. Let me handle this.”

She hummed, huffing out a laugh. “It better be entertaining.”

“Life of the party here,” Percy commented, smirking and trying to erase the crippling insecurity that was now filling his head. “King of entertainment.”

As she laughed again, making him ask himself how the hell could she and Nico come from the same family, Percy decided to head straight towards the center of the map.

The possibility that they would have met someone on the way were high since everyone near the map borders was now heading in the same direction. He had to prove himself somehow, though, and he really couldn’t do it while waiting for other players to bump into them while waiting for the ring to close.

Nico was always behind them, as Percy was now used to. He just missed hearing him talk, though, and he wondered why he had decided to leave his mic off this time. Maybe he had thought Hazel would do all the talking. Which, he wouldn’t have been wrong, since she did seem like the chatty type.

She would keep on asking him trivial stuff like for how long he had been gaming, if he had a Twitch account, too, and she complained about the last announced map inserted in the game being too similar to the other three already existing ones. Percy sure managed to distract himself and ignore the fact that he was supposed to lead the game.

That had been a mistake, though, considering he was by now used to Nico telling him where to look and when. It cost him the embarrassment of being downed some minutes before by another squad as they were passing through a small conglomerate of wooden shacks.

Dragging his character behind some broken statue, he heard Hazel hum from time to time like she was thinking, whispering quietly as she hid inside one of the huts after having left a member of the enemy squad to bleed out. From the view Percy could have of the battle, he found himself dumbfounded by the fact that Nico was now fighting with some rifle at relatively close range without seeming any problems.

Sure, his Hades character did take in quite a bit of damage in the meanwhile, a lot more than Hazel's Hephaestus character, but they both still managed to take down at least one enemy each, winning the firing match.

“You okay, man?” She laughed as her character ran to his, healing him up with Nico covering their back. “You didn’t look like you were expecting that.”

“I wasn't,” Percy had to admit, burying his own wounded pride. “I’m easily distracted and I'm probably too used to people telling me to watch out.”

“That's fine, just look around,” she spoke as they started walking again, Percy in front. “Also, we're right behind you. You gotta keep your eyes open, though.”

“Right,” Percy replied, and now he was finally starting to see the similarities between the two cousins. He didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

Still heading towards the center of the ring, they met with another couple squads which they had the advantage to spot before their enemies had the chance to detect their presence. Despite that head start, Percy did the only thing that would have prevented him from embarrassing himself again in front of Hazel; and that was hiding and try to come up with a strategy.

Unfortunately, though, he had completely forgotten about the fact that thinking tended to make him even more inattentive to everything else going on in the game. So, that resulted in two of the other squad members noticing him and firing at him in duo. He still managed to make it out of their firing range, delivering just a bit of damage to at least one of them while running using Poseidon’s water-shifting ability (which only worked for a couple of seconds because of the dry ground), retaliating as quickly as possible before he could hear shots being fired from one of his teammates.

Hazel managed to somehow take down both the guys that had been aiming at him as he recharged his shields behind some musky rocks and, before he had the occasion to jump out of his hiding spot, he did catch the other enemy team approaching them. Feeling his focus narrow to one of them, he fired directly from behind his hiding spot using his optics for precision, taking down one of them before he ended up being the one taking the bullets.

After a moment, he found Hazel approaching him directly from behind, jumping on the highest point of the pile of boulders beside him.

“What now, entertainment guy?” She asked, and Percy was surely surprised to hear that vein of sarcasm in her. He started panicking, though, because he definitely wasn’t used to be the one hiding away and shielding himself and let his teammates handle the dirty work.

It wasn’t supposed to work like that.

“Gimme time, still getting used to having three people,” he half-lied, trying to procrastinate thinking about what would have been the most effective strategy at the moment.

Unfortunately, his mind had turned to nothing but a black void, and he almost allowed himself to space out when he ran towards another set of rocks, their enemies now extremely close and firing non-stop from their positions. He used Poseidon’s ability again, lucky that it had already recharged, morphing into a small stream again to get even closer to the other squad, which was now fortunately busy with both them and taking down the third squad present in their line of sight. He gave up doing the mind work and trusted his default attitude, walking towards his enemies while firing at a quick pace with his energy ammo weapon.

He managed to take down two of the team that had just joined the battle; he had been lucky they didn’t seem too experienced in close-range battles, and that Hazel had evidently weakened them a great amount for him to take them down that easily.

Just when he was searching around for the last standing member of the team they had first attacked, Hades’ banner lightened up and, a few shots later, there was silence. Nico’s character came back towards them from a close two-story building as Percy patched himself up with ambrosia, recharged his assault rifle and light machine gun, knowing the other was probably looking at him with disappointment through the screen.

Percy cleared his throat then, starting to walk towards the center of the map yet again. “You need any healing?”

“Nah, we’re good, man,” Hazel spoke, and Percy had no idea why she was talking in plural person. “Actually, you got some good optics by any chance?”

“Sure do,” he casually replied, searching through his digital backpack while his mind started working again.

 _What even was that?_ , he asked himself, thinking back to his strategy-making attempt just before. He wasn’t even the type to do that. Being with those two was seriously weighing on his nerves, and he couldn’t allow this to happen now that it was Hazel’s fucking first time watching him deal with the game. She was probably wondering why Nico had hinted at Percy being good enough to be in their team in the first place.

And, Christ, when the hell did he become such an easy target? He was usually the one to initiate combat because that used to make it _fun_.

When did it stop being fun? And, most of all, when did he stop chasing the thrill of it all?

That was Nico’s strategy, not his. He was trying to emulate something that had never belonged to him, and that almost made him slap himself. It reminded him of all the times he had compared his own grades with Annabeth’s, thinking he was somehow approaching things wrong, because how could she study exactly the same amount of time as him and get an A+, while he couldn’t even reach a miserable D?

He took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the foul air of his room. He relaxed his arms and hands around the controller and stared at the screen with determination. Telling himself to stop worrying so much over a fucking game probably wasn’t going to help that much but, maybe, trying not to think and to just let the anxiety be could maybe have been the right choice.

He just needed to do what he had always done to win matches. Spot, aim, shoot. On and on, until no one was left to take down. Two other people being with him weren’t going to slow him down for sure. On the contrary, he trusted them both with his life. So, what did he even have to lose?

In front of them, close to the center of the map, there was the map point every player had been to at least once, close to the end of the matches. Random, small houses scattered around, a small creek flowing exactly in between the valley, surrounded by high grass and broken statues. A couple of narrow, broken-down wooden bridges were the only thing connecting the two sides of the dell.

He could already spot some movement in one of the opposite-side buildings. He signaled it to Hazel and Nico.

“Okay, let me go first this time,” he stated somewhat confidently. “Hephaestus can set traps, right? That fire stuff that blows up when you get close.”

“Yeah, it’s actually just a smoke bomb,” Hazel replied. “You wanna use it?”

“Hell yeah,” he replied. “I’ll tell you when. We’re going right in.”

“Yessir,” she joked, letting him walk through the tall grass in front of them, down towards the water.

As he checked his own shields one last time and changed his weapon to his quick assault rifle, he realized to be extremely thankful to have chosen Poseidon this time.

“I’mma head to the other side. You two stay here,” he commanded, already running towards one of the bridges. “Put some traps on the bridges. Keep them in there with me.”

“Copy that,” Hazel replied. “I’ll watch them from the other side.”

“Great,” he concluded, already jumping onto one of the bridges.

He briskly ran towards the source of the movement, fully aware that he would have soon had to use Poseidon's special ability to either shield himself or to run towards the others, since fighting a whole other three-men squad alone didn’t sound like the easiest thing. Also, in all honesty, he had no idea if that plan could work. He had just made it up on the spot, and he hadn’t thought of even half the possible alternative scenarios in his mind.

Just like he hadn’t thought about an Athena character being present, sensing him with her x-ray vision, just as he was approaching the building in which he had caught her run into. So much for taking them by surprise, he thought. The whole enemy team now was probably aware of his presence, making it essential for him to act quickly.

Just as he arrived close to the hollow window of the small house, he spotted the Athena character trying to escape the building and fired away. Just as she aimed at him while turning around, he acted quickly enough to crouch behind the windowed wall of the house, removing himself from the guy’s firing line just in time. He ran towards the entrance of the building then, wanting and probably managing to catch them by surprise and finally leaving them bleeding out just outside the building’s doorstep. He didn’t stay long enough to finish them completely, so he left them there, helpless, as he scanned around for the two remaining teammates.

While looking around, though, realized too late he was leaving himself completely exposed. Bullets came from his left, and before he could even turn around to look at what either Nico or Hazel was pinging at near him, Hazel’s character banner lightened up as she started firing, too.

“To your right, behind that statue,” Hazel warned him, making him turn around and run towards the source of the bullets while aiming at the small head he could get a glimpse of behind a huge, detached arm of some broken-down sculpture.

“Thank you, saw ‘em,” he quickly thanked as he kept on walking. The guy in front of him, though, had the wonderful idea to start running out of his peripheric vision at a high speed, which made Percy aware he was having to do with a Hermes character.

Quickly checking his health status and judging it decent enough to run after him, he did. He threw himself in the close river, traveling with the current where he had last seen his enemy, closer to the second bridge, where the grass wasn’t that tall anymore.

Hazel was already pinging at the position of their enemy as he reformed, directly in front of him behind another broken-down sculpture’s head. Feeling adrenaline rush through him, he approached the spot and jumped right on top of the huge head, finding the Hermes character just below him, and fired away. It still was a bit of a fight, since the guy had evidently been good enough at running away making Percy waste enough time just recharging his ammo while catching up to him. He managed to chase after him after jumping back down on the grass and following him towards the bridge as the guy turned around to fire at Percy in turn. Just as Percy managed to take him down, too, and was finally reloading his gun, though, his health not being at its best, a thick cloud of arrows started falling from the sky.

That signaled the special ability of an Artemis character.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” he lamented, probably being too loud, trying his best to move before the arrows were stricken to the ground. That didn’t work, though, cause his Poseidon fell down almost immediately as the arrows began to hit the grass below him. He knew they had probably targeted Hazel, too, because she too was cursing under her breath as the arrows came down on them.

So, he was now knocked down and left to bleed out by himself, luckily not dead yet. Hazel was now low on health, but Nico was the only one who seemed to be nowhere to be found, still with the highest HPs out of all of them.

“Fine, I’ll leave that to you,” he sighed, to none of them in particular.

“Sure thing,” she replied, evidently annoyed by the inconvenience.

After he just laid in the grass for a moment, he dragged himself closer to the bridge on which he saw, close to the ground, two of the Hephaestus traps. He stopped close to the water when he saw a black shadow approaching him from behind.

“Nico?” Percy spoke, frowning as Nico’s Hades character healed him and put him back on his feet. He stopped himself from asking why, though, reminding himself that Nico couldn’t reply. “Uh, thanks, man. Wasn’t necessary.”

Hades then just ran back to wherever he had come from, and Percy was left recharging his shields before walking towards the sound of shots close to the initial bridge he had passed.

“This guy’s a die-hard,” Hazel spoke, referring to the Artemis character that was now jumping back and forth from the inside to the outside of the building in which Percy had taken down that Athena guy.

They were now both engaging in a distant firing contest with Hazel’s Hephaestus character, and Percy was both getting frustrated and hyped up by those guys being so annoyingly stubborn to die.

“Lemme fix that now,” he mentioned, smirking as he got closer to their enemies’ hiding spot, being detected by that Athena character vision yet again.

Swiftly replacing his assault rifle with a more powerful energy rifle, and started aiming just as the Athena character began firing at him with a sniper gun. Fortunately, Percy managed to realize that she probably wasn’t going to hit him with that at such a close distance, swiftly moving from side to side while shooting and striking the character enough times to take her down.

In the meantime, the Artemis character had managed to escape and run towards the bridge in the tall grass, probably wanting to hide and recharge while getting closer to Hazel’s Hephaestus. As she did so, though, she fell right into one of the smoke traps that Hazel had placed just before on that bridge, too, buying Percy some time to head towards the spot and fire through the smoke alongside Hazel on the other side of the creek, until they finally managed to take the whole squad down.

As all the enemy team’s bodies turned into death boxes, Percy sighed heavily; both out of relief and intense satisfaction.

He heard Hazel laugh, then. “Were you saving yourself for the sake of entertainment, or is this beginner’s luck?”

“Well, I’m no beginner. Do the math,” Percy chuckled, adrenaline slowly fading from his veins, leaving just the familiar feeling of pride and victory behind.

After that match, they continued on with the game, and Percy finally felt himself relax and enjoy the game in who-knows how much.

He realized they actually did work well together. Managing to finish in second place at that time, only because the other squad had taken them by surprise and because Nico had been mindlessly following them along at a close distance, but not quite putting his full abilities to use, Percy had to hold back his excitement for what was to come.

Sticking together wasn’t something convenient to do, especially when approaching the end of the match. Ending up in second place despite that probably meant they could have easily managed to win, if they had all played like they should have had.

Proving that point, all of them contributed to their following victory during the following match. Percy could finally admire Hephaestus’ special fire ability in the first row, along with Hazel’s extremely versatility. He still struggled to find any weakness in her gameplay. Nico kept on being their shadow, entering the picture mainly during critical moments in the game, often managing to but one or both of them back on their feet after being almost taken down.

As they finished their fourth match, he thanked Hazel for her presence, still feeling starstruck while talking to her while having her screen name in front of his eyes.

“You’re kidding?” She rushed to reply. “Thank _you_ , man, you’re not that bad at all. I mean, not that I don’t trust Nico, but sometimes he can be…” she let out a small laugh then, and Percy frowned slightly.

“Yeah?” He encouraged her.

“I forgot what I was going to say. Sorry, school’s killing me,” she apologized, and Percy chuckled.

“I don’t mind. I’m usually the one blacking out when I speak,” Percy tried to comfort her. “When’ll you be playing again?”

“As soon as possible,” she replied, a hint of a smile in her tone. “How ‘bout that we talk on Discord in the meantime?”

“Sounds great,” Percy agreed, grinning. “Talk to you later, then.”

“Sure thing,” she replied. “Bye-bye!” She greeted in the cutest way, and he almost felt weak.

It was only after that that he had, to his unpleasant surprise, noticed Nico being already disconnected from the game.

His Poseidon stood alone in the pre-match screen as Percy stared, pondering whether or not to accept his own request to complete yet another match by himself, considering that Nico had already told him he would have been busy with his own studies. That was probably why the other wasn't answering his messages those days, and school could have also been the reason why Annabeth, too, had warned him she would have probably been excessively on edge in the days to come.

Since thinking about school and the following American Literature and History tests were starting to give him a stomachache, he mindlessly let his finger press the small triangle on his controller, starting another match. And then another couple, just to be sure he had been completely desensitized to any anxious thought for at least an hour before following his mom's orders to head to bed.

He tucked himself under the covers while staring at his and Nico's chat, waiting for Annabeth to answer his goodnight text as usual. After repeatedly checking Nico’s online status, he found himself inspecting his Discord, too. That had been totally useless though, because he had forgotten Nico's habit to leave his status as invisible.

Didn't he say he had started talking to the guy he was texting with through some Discord server? Percy wondered if that Will guy also had Nico's number, or if they had only ever chatted on there. Though they had to have exchanged numbers, right? They liked each other, Percy thought as he stared at Nico's Discord profile picture.

And it wasn’t until he felt something tightening around his stomach that he realized he was now, indeed, jealous. He would have preferred not to know about Will's existence at all, to be completely honest, because that had meant acknowledging the existence of someone definitely prettier (or more handsome) than him being worthy of Nico's attention.

And that didn’t sit right with him.

Despite that, he did feel a bit incoherent, considering he hadn't given Nico any particular sign he was actually interested in him as more than a friend, because he couldn’t. He still had a girlfriend, and despite the whole listen-to-your-heart argument his mom had made, it was still way easier said than done. Also, because his heart and his head were now debating on two completely opposite sides, and he could find absolutely no way to integrate their perspectives into one.

He was trying to be an adult for once in his life, and everything would have gone so smoothly if only he hadn't just found out boys being on his list of interests. And it wasn’t even boys, for Christ's sake, because he couldn’t remember anything similar to a boy-crush; except maybe the weird attachment he had initially felt for Jason, which he had always blamed on the fact that he was so similar to Annabeth.

Also, Jason Grace had always been a goddamn handsome guy. Nothing to say against that.

Now, though, nothing could excuse whatever he was feeling for Nico. As a consequence, his head was still a mess.

He was tired of listening to his head when people around him told him to listen to his gut, and vice versa. His mom wasn't probably even the best person to take advice from, considering she probably wasn't as impartial as she would have liked. He had already hinted at the situation with both Leo and Charles only to be met with, respectively, a tsunami of questions and with an indifferent “sorry ‘bout that" and nothing else.

He still needed someone that knew enough about the whole situation to finally push him to actually do something, and the only person who had always managed to kick his ass hard enough to wake him up from his constant indecision and bad habit of ignoring problems had just been one. His dad.

On second thought, though, all the decisions his dad had pushed his towards had been detrimental to either his health or his relationships with people. Like the time he had been fine with him playing on the far end of the beach near the reef when he was nine, completely aware of an Atlantic storm approaching, during which Percy ended up walking back to their bungalow completely soaked and shaking from the cold. Or that one time when he was twelve when he had let him play inside with a paintball gun while sunbathing outside, in which Percy had managed to both hit Tyson in the face with a paint-bullet and break at least three different pieces of wall decoration.

So, yeah. The second-best was definitely Jason.

Percy groaned at the thought, already dreading the disheartening conversation he knew they would have. Despite that, he did make the smart decision to text Jason to ask him when he could come over to hang out that same week. As usual, Jason chose one of the few days in which his parents wouldn’t have been home, telling him to come over that Thursday right after school. Percy didn’t complain and accepted the invite right away, not giving his friend any details or reasons for why he would have liked to see him on such a full week.

While ignoring the heavy weight on his chest when Annabeth finally replied to his texts, he luckily fell asleep soon after.

He dragged himself through study sessions and school duties the whole week after, feeling like no amount of rest could make him wake up feeling refreshed.

As he found himself outside Jason’s house that Thursday, he had needed to remind himself to repress the urge to throw himself through the house’s glass windows and into that backyard pool while fully clothed as Jason opened the door and let him in. They greeted with a shake of their hands and a quick hug, and Jason led him to his own room before quickly introducing Percy to his new Bluetooth speakers. After that, Percy was soon chilling on Jason’s bed, blasting some hip-hop music from the new stereo, Jason sitting beside the bed on his beanbag while fully immersed in their fifth _Call of Duty_ match.

“Dude, how the hell did you become so decent at this?” Jason asked him at the end of their last game. They didn’t win but, at least, they stayed entertained for at least more than an hour. “Did you practice or something?”

“Nah, man, it’s just a change in mindset,” Percy replied casually, shrugging his shoulders and placing the phone beside him on the bed. He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the pale blue ceiling. “People are teaching me good.”

“And who’s teaching you?” Jason questioned then.

It had been a completely logical question to ask, Percy thought. So why did he suddenly feel panicky while thinking about the true answer?

“I was kidding, man,” Percy resolved, not meeting his friend’s eyes. “I’m just gaming a lot lately on _NuOlympus_. Nothing much.”

“Man, I don’t mean to be rude, but…” Jason started, mindlessly tapping on his own phone’s screen. “That kinda smells like bullshit.”

“Go get your nose checked,” Percy rushed to reply, to which Jason chuckled before looking at him behind his clear glasses.

“Woah, man, where’d you keep all that ego until now?” The blonde boy asked, smirking, making Percy turn to look at him, rising on his elbows.

“Why’re you being an asshole now?” Percy questioned, noticing a hint of defensiveness in his tone that he definitely hadn’t consciously put there. He didn’t like that.

Jason just rose his arms in defense, shrugging his shoulders before going back to whatever he was so busy doing with his phone. “Okay, nevermind. Forget I asked.”

But Percy couldn’t forget that. And, he didn’t want to, because he had just realized this could actually be his chance to spill his guts to him like he had planned that Saturday night. Hiding something would always make him defensive; people had told him that over and over again throughout the years. Discussions that would arise from one of his overly-emotional comments would always end up with him mistakenly hurting someone’s feelings.

He didn’t want that to happen anymore; or, at least, he just wanted for it not to be that frequent anymore. He wasn’t some angry pre-adolescent boy anymore, and he needed to remind himself of how an adult would act in certain situations to take a step back and not let his feelings and impulses take over him.

He needed to remind himself that he was relatively safe. Jason had always been his friend, and had never disappointed him in any major way. Sure, there was that time at a party where he had left Percy throwing up in the bathroom to follow some girl he had just met down in the basement for who knows what reason since he didn’t even end up hooking up with her, but they were both drunk and high. It wasn’t that big of a deal, Percy had realized some time later. He had still caught the chance to make Jason feel sorry, just to avoid it happening again. But, apart from minor occurrences, he would have trusted Jason with his house if the necessity ever came. Not with his life, though; he suspected Jason to be too extremely practical to value something temporary like someone else’s life as much as he valued real estate.

The point was, Percy could talk. It was just stupid, scary thoughts always bothering him and ordering him to keep quiet. He guessed that had to have to do with him still having huge difficulties accepting the image of himself liking another guy. He had never thought he would have to basically come out to people with something other than his ADHD, since the possibility of himself actually being attracted to boys had honestly never crossed his mind. He had noticed himself being his friends’ favorite subject for majority of their gay jokes, but he had always justified that with his tendency to be a pretty over-the-top person when it came to physical affection.

Now, though, he was guessing if it had actually been just that.

Still, he knew Jason wouldn’t have had any problem with that. Sometimes it felt to Percy like he almost _wanted_ to be right when he would tease Percy about his friendliness and the number of hugs he would give people. Also, the many times he fell asleep on either him or basically every person from their friend group couldn’t be erased from anyone’s mind. Not that it meant warmth corresponded with the amount of love for boys in a single person; people like Nico would have otherwise been as straight as a stainless steel pole. So yeah, that clearly wasn’t the case.

Taking in a breath and laying back down again, not meeting Jason’s eyes, he started to talk. “Sorry,” he mentioned, playing with the strings of his own hoodie. He sighed. “Okay, there’s actually someone teaching me a couple things.”

“Yeah?” Jason asked, finally raising his gaze from the small screen. “Someone crazy enough to do it?”

“You’re hurting my feelings, man, seriously,” Percy mentioned, a hint of irony in his tone. “Really though,” he started again, tightening his lips and preparing himself for what was to come. “You remember the guy from last time? Like, the one you saw me texting with when we hung out at Leo’s?”

“Who, _that_ guy? The guy who made you smile for like, ten minutes straight?” Jason suddenly questioned, rhetorically. “Wonder why I haven’t seen that coming.”

Percy rolled his eyes at the comment, feeling both flustered and angry at his past self for being so fucking obvious to anyone but himself. “Yeah. Yeah, _that_ guy,” he replied, annoyed. “Weren’t you the one talking about ego, you tight-ass?”

He felt Jason staring at him with a half-open mouth as he finally let his phone resting on his legs, seemingly ignoring Percy’s last comment. “Oh, that’s bad,” he finally spoke, making Percy frown.

“What’s bad?” Percy questioned, suddenly feeling on edge. “I mean, I know it’s bad. But I haven’t told you anything yet.”

“It’s on your face, man, you look like you’re thinking about the color of the flowers for your future wedding,” Jason spoke, to which Percy felt heat rise to his face before turning towards his friend, sitting up on the bed and running a hand down over his face. “Leo owes me money now anyway, so thanks for that.”

It took a couple moments for that last sentence to make sense in his mind.

“What the _fuck_ , Jason,” Percy finally asked, indignant, as he stared at his friend. “Did you bet on me being gay?”

“I don’t care about you being gay or not, man,” Jason cooly explained. The bastard was not even ashamed of his own actions. “I just bet on you having a crush for that guy instead of that Rachel girl from your high school’s art class. Leo was dead sure you’d chase after her.”

Percy still hoped he was joking, despite very well knowing Jason’s teasing face and definitely recognizing that not even being close to the expression in front of him.

“Excuse my French, but what the _fuck_?” Percy spat again. It was kind of funny, though, and very much like Jason. It just didn’t make sense to admit it, being the subject of the joke. “And what does it mean you don’t care?”

“What I said, man,” Jason shrugged, removing his glasses and wiping them with his cleaning cloth. “I don’t care who you end up with. Unless it’s people I’d like to date, which for now never happened since I don’t like blondes.”

“Man, that’s so not true,” Percy corrected. “Didn’t you have a crush on Scarlett Johansson?”

“I like her with red hair as Black Widow, that’s _different_ ,” Jason corrected him. “And I meant real-life girls.”

“That’s still bullshit,” Percy replied, to which Jason didn’t protest. “Anyway, I still got Annabeth, man. Everything’s a mess.”

“Sorry to say this, but,” Jason started. Being already used to the other boy’s brutal honesty though, Percy didn’t even need to excuse him. “If you’re actually crushing on someone else, you should just leave. I mean, you’re seventeen, it’s not like you’re gonna get married tomorrow. Two years are more than enough, so who’s even keeping you there?”

Percy stared at him, reluctantly letting the words sink in inside his thick skull.

“It does have to mean something, you liking the guy,” Jason continued, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Also, isn’t she moving to Europe or something? How’re you going to deal with that eventually?”

Percy rushed to correct him. “That’s not the problem, man, I promised her we’ll FaceTime and shit…”

“So you’re telling me you don’t have any problems with that?” His friend interrupted him, making Percy’s voice die in his throat. “Come on, man, stop trying to make it work when we both know you’re not gonna just wait for her like some puppy.”

“Okay, that’s a bit too far,” Percy warned, purely because he had felt that last comment hit harder than he would have liked. “I’m no puppy. _We_ decided we’d make it work together.”

“Yeah, like that last time she was gone for the whole month of July and you hooked up with that girl in the back of Charles’ dad’s truck?” Jason interrupted him, again, making Percy sigh in frustration.

“ _Okay_ , that happened once in our whole relationship…”

“It happened, though,” his friend continued. “You didn’t even tell her, man. How do you think you’re going to hold back for a whole year?”

“Six months,” Percy corrected in a mutter.

“Whatever, I give it a month before you accidentally forget about her one night and hook up with that… what’s the guy’s name?” Jason asked casually, and Percy weirdly hesitated.

He tried sticking to his usual self, which would have had no problem at all with dropping names, ignoring the knot that had formed in his throat when it came to speaking Nico’s name. “Nico.”

“That Nico guy,” Jason managed to conclude.

Percy was still noticing how it all seemed way more real, now that someone apart from his mom knew about Nico’s existence. And that someone being one of his close friends made it sound even more important and, somehow, significant. Like it wasn’t just something he could keep for himself while waiting for it to pass as phases do. It still was a crush though, so that shouldn’t have felt like that huge of a confession. He still couldn’t understand how he could keep on denying the fact that, hell, he was going crazy trying not to think about the fact that he seemed to be more impatient at the thought of seeing Nico than his own girlfriend.

He breathed in again, as casually as possible while still keeping a straight face. In reality, his head had already started spiraling towards an eventuality he really didn’t want to acknowledge.

“So, what now?” Percy asked, defeated, realizing he probably sounded straight-up pathetic. “I mean, should I leave her? How do I even tell her about this?”

Jason shrugged then, adjusting his glasses on his nose and glancing at him with his clear eyes. “What d’you think? You’ll just keep on pretending this guy doesn’t exist until she leaves, and then what?” He rightfully questioned. “Honestly, one relationship is complicated enough being in your shoes. What makes you want to add another one?”

Percy remained silent.

When the thoughts in his head finally started to slow down and rest in their place for a second, he chuckled lowly. “Thanks, man. But you’re still a money-eating asshole.”

Jason delivered him one of his smug smiles. “I’m actually feeling more like your own conscience right now.”

“That explains all my shit decision-making skills,” Percy commented, to which Jason just laughed before they were both back to their usual, casual selves.

No more unwanted and anxiety-provoking conversations while they spent the rest of the evening hanging out trying to get some friends to come over until both Travis and Charles dropped by for a couple of matches on Jason’s PS4, a pizza, and a couple of beers from Jason’s parents’ fridge until Percy had to head back home, waiting for Friday to come.

When he found himself in his room that night, laying down on his bed and looking at skating videos on YouTube, feeling a kind of melancholy towards his past afternoons spent at the skate park with Piper while texting with Annabeth, he realized he was spending most of his time mindlessly staring at Nico’s chat like he was expecting something. Anything, really.

He was slowly starting to get how busy Nico must have been lately if he wasn’t even answering his texts on time and seemed to spend less time than usual on _NuOlympus_. The last time they talked had been a couple days before, and it had been an unusually short conversation for their current standards. Also, Percy was starting to suspect the feeling of emptiness at the pit of his stomach to be the physical symptom of his longing for the time he had spent with Nico. And that was all but a comforting thought.

He had tried asking Annabeth to see each other soon, to discuss the situation. He had actually written the text and was about to send it when his mind just retreated back to what-the-fuck-are-you-doing mode. He may have been convinced when he had talked about the issue with Jason, but he still had the bad habit of making things seem much easier than they actually were for himself.

He couldn’t leave her. There was no way in hell he could tell her those two words because he was, in the end, just a greatly concealed coward.

He couldn’t tell Nico, and he couldn’t tell her, when only thinking about breaking up had probably been one of the most difficult decisions he ever had to take. He needed some kind of incentive, something that would have pushed him to at least come up with an excuse to urgently talk with her.

That was probably why he was impatiently, hopelessly waiting for a message to pop up in his and Nico’s chat. That would have been a great incentive for him to finally realize yet again that, yes, it was probably Nico who was taking up way too much space in his mind for Annabeth to fit in the picture, too.

And, Christ, did that sound awful to his ears.

He tried not to imagine Annabeth’s face when he would have had to make her understand at least part of the situation, and the thought of her walking away from him, disappointed and bitter, was a terrifying possibility he just couldn’t bear thinking about.

He also had to keep in mind the fact he had no idea about Nico’s feelings for him, and that terrified even more. Being alone was still the worst possibility of all, rooted in his mind and tied around his heart and squeezing it every time it would peek into his conscious thoughts.

He locked his phone, buried both hands in his hair, and massaged his scalp. Staring at the ceiling, he thought back at everything he and Annabeth had been through in two years. Then, he stopped almost immediately at the image of their first date in that Chinese restaurant they still went to from time to time, finding himself way to cheesy for his own standards.

Still, he couldn’t stop the images of Annabeth’s face from coming back; especially during their first meeting, when their mutual friend Grover had introduced them when they were still only fourteen. Now he was seventeen going on eighteen, and Annabeth had been one of the few constants in his life. And she could have been for many years more, if only Percy hadn’t met the boy for whom his mind considered thinking about him 24/7 worth his time and energy.

Annabeth had always meant long-term goals and commitment. Just like college, and just like his family.

Nico meant nothing remotely similar. He meant gambling, not telling his mom he was going to compete in a gaming tournament that had nothing to do with any of his education skills, and much less with his future.

But, _fuck_ , did it feel like the most exciting thing he had ever done in _years_. And Percy was as ready to do anything for Nico to like him back as he was ready to make his thing with Annabeth work out from overseas. If not more.

After that last thought, he gave himself an ultimatum.

Grabbing his phone, he composed a text announcing he would have met Annabeth outside of the library the next day after school. When she, confusedly, agreed, he wished her goodnight like he always did while forcibly turning off his phone. He fell asleep maybe an hour later after having stared at the ceiling for a good forty minutes, internally panicking at his own conscience for the possible awful decision he was going to commit the day after.

The following day, he woke up feeling like he had just run a marathon, feeling his hair sticking to the back of his neck as proof he had been sweating and moving quite a lot in his sleep. He didn’t seem to shake off the feeling of heaviness in his chest and couldn’t stop feeling like he was about to attend a funeral.

His friends clearly did notice, as Tyson did, too. Having slept like shit, he went from class to class like an android would, mechanically attending classes but blacking out for most of the lessons while chewing on his pencils and the strings of his hoodie, along with making a mess out of his already ruffled hair because of how many times he had been running his hands through them in an attempt to bring himself back to reality.

He mentally thanked himself for having chosen a Friday, since he knew he wouldn’t have had the strength to study after that conversation, and for at least a day after that. And he recognized that as being optimistic.

Heading out of the school building in the afternoon, he started walking towards the library at a quick pace. The whole way, he spent it biting on his nails and making himself nauseous by replaying bad-ending scenarios in his mind, from Annabeth getting so angry at him she would decide to straight-up not talk to him anymore, to her confessing she too was interested in someone else and that was evidently way better than him, and again to her being impossibly weirded out by him liking someone that was not a girl. Which, Percy would have never liked to tell her anyway. But, he knew himself well enough to know that oversharing wasn’t some rare occurrence for him, especially with someone as close to him as Annabeth was. It felt even worse keeping it from her, like it was some dirty little secret he had to keep for himself when there usually was nothing that could be considered a secret between them.

He kept thinking about what would have happened maybe an hour after and if this was still so necessary as Jason and his mom made it seem. Why did it have to happen now, he had no idea, and he tried to be mad at someone, or something, for it. He had to at least blame the situation on something, but everything he could come up with would always tie back to, simply, Nico.

It was his fault for existing, Percy was sure of it. He wasn’t sure other people could turn people gay (he was actually pretty sure it _not_ being the case) but, if that were the case, then he would have liked for Nico to invert the spell he had put on Percy’s mind because it evidently wasn’t good for his future, at all.

And as soon as he turned the corner, he was met with Annabeth’s silhouette waiting in front of the big glass doors, looking at her phone and with her shoulder bag still in place from school.

He couldn’t help but stare and almost physically push the instinct to run away back deep, deep beneath his conscious mind, letting his rational conscience take the next steps for him.

“Oh, hey there, skater boy,” she greeted him with a small smile as Percy got closer to her. “Wasn’t expecting you this early.”

“Yeah…” he replied with a side-smile, before realizing that a more elaborate answer would have maybe been more appreciated. “I mean, I expected that. So I tried to be on time.”

She frowned then, turning towards him and observing his face. “Don’t worry about it,” she spoke before she ruffled up his hair with a hand. “So, is something wrong?”

He let her hand mess up his hair even more before he could answer. “Is it that evident?”

“I mean, it’s been almost a minute and I haven’t heard any sarcastic comments coming out of your mouth, so something’s definitely not right,” she explained, to which Percy replied with yet another small smile.

“Right,” he agreed, realizing she probably was right. He didn’t even feel like talking at all, to be honest. “Is there a place to sit around here?”

“There’s a kid’s park near here, I think,” she replied, looking around with attentive eyes. She took the first steps after pointing behind herself. “It’s not much, but at least there’s benches.”

“I love watching kids play,” he commented before he started following her towards their destination, mindlessly squeezing his backpack’s shoulder straps. “It reminds me of when I didn’t have to read Shakespeare to seem smart.”

“There you are again,” she commented, and then laughed with him while giving him a side-hug.

Around then minutes later, they were already sitting down on a dark green bench in a close residential area, a bunch of kids playing and screaming on the slide while they sat on the side, observing them jump and running around.

Percy definitely wasn’t in the mood to make any comments about them, though.

“So,” Annabeth started, looking at him with her clever, gray eyes from the side, laying with an elbow on her knee. “What’s this about?”

Percy felt his throat tighten and his leg start bouncing at a quick pace as he thought about how to approach the issue. Unfortunately, he found his mind as blank as a white bedsheet. So, he tried buying himself some more time.

“So…” he hesitated, staring at the tear on the knee of his jeans. “How was today?” He asked, soon realizing how stupid that sounded.

She just stared for a moment before chuckling, looking at him sweetly. “Percy,” she started. “Are we here to talk about my day?”

“Right,” he replied. Because she was.

He dragged a hand down on his face, telling himself that it wasn’t all over yet.

Running was still an option. It would have been easy, pretending like he was just there to pick her up and go on a surprise date on some random rooftop bar and then bring her home, falling asleep hugging her and burying his face in her hair. _It would have been so easy._

“Hey,” she called, Percy suddenly aware of one of her hands on his thigh, trying to comfort him. “It's okay. Just tell me what happened. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

He nodded, taking in a deep breath. His leg was still bouncing, making his whole body shake, but he had given up on trying to make the movement stop.

“Yeah,” he replied, massaging his own hand. “It's just… hard to say. It's so out of the blue, y’know? I would have never wanted this to happen, but it did, and now I’m just stuck with the situation and I tried to make it go away. Like, I deadass thought it would’ve gone away with time, but it didn’t, and…”

“Baby, stop there,” she stopped him, her hand now on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly to bring him back to the present. “Breathe. Why don’t you start from the beginning so that I can understand, too?”

He looked at her, surprised, and looked inside her clear, almond eyes before breathing in again. He was crazy if he had thought letting her go could potentially be a good idea. He had gone completely out of his mind.

“Fair enough,” he managed to breathe out, gulping down the knot in his throat. “Months ago, I met this person. We were like, friends, y'know? _NuO_ and that kind of stuff.”

She nodded, scrutinizing him with her gaze. He tried not to look at her clear eyebrows raising slowly, focusing instead on the two kids hanging from some bars in front of them.

“Then… I don’t know how it happened. I just know I keep…” he struggled, hesitating. “… dreaming about them, and thinking about them, and I don’t want to. We saw each other recently and, you know how I am sometimes. I just couldn’t stop… _staring_ , all the damn time. And now I miss them and it's a fucking huge mess, and…”

“Percy,” she interrupted him again, dragging him out of his thoughts yet again. “Do you like someone else? Is this what you're trying to say?”

His mind emptying, and honestly feeling both caught red-handed and terrified, he nodded slowly. He wanted to get out. His leg muscles were almost too tense, just like he was about to start running from one moment to the next.

But then, her hand was yet again on his thigh, soft and warm, and he thought that was probably the one thing still keeping him there, as insignificant as it might have sounded.

“I'm so sorry,” he managed to utter, and the whole near-perfect mask he had tried to keep on for the last weeks all came crumbling down directly on his face. He laughed bitterly, even though there probably wasn’t anything remotely funny about the situation. “This cannot be right. I’m probably going crazy ‘cause it's the end of the semester and Mrs. Dodds’ fucking with my head.”

“I really don't think you're going crazy,” Annabeth replied, and Percy turned to her like she was the one talking nonsense now. She stared straight in front of her, too, but Percy couldn’t guess what she was thinking. That both frustrated him and pushed him even more towards an edge. “Actually… thank you for telling me.”

He was still waiting for the bomb to drop, for some other excruciatingly long seconds.

But nothing happened.

His heart still beating too fast, he kept on going. “I'm sorry, I…” he tried, looking to his side. “I didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t bear you not knowing this,” he continued, breathing in. “I never wanted this to happen,” he stated in a low tone, and she finally turned to look at him.

“Percy, this doesn’t change anything for me,” she stated, and Percy had difficulty processing those words before she started speaking again. “I love you anyway. I know you'd never want this to happen, but it did. Nobody can do anything about it, I guess.”

He turned towards her again, face full of surprise and confusion. He stared at her with hopeful eyes. “I thought you were going to… y’know…”

“What, get angry at you? Say I don’t want to see you anymore?” She asked with a small smile that made Percy melt inside, but behind which he could still spot a hint of hurt. Like she was trying to hide some burning papercut on her fingertip. “No way, dumbass. You're my best friend. I don’t want to live without you.”

Percy felt his own eyes water, and tried his best to hold himself together in front of her.

He just turned to look in front of him again, chuckling lowly for a reason he couldn’t quite place. “I'm a fucking idiot.”

“That's not exactly news,” she commented, but Percy could tell she too was trying to dismiss all the emotion in her tone. “What do you want to do now about this, now?”

Percy pressed his lips together. And weirdly enough, he still couldn’t say it.

“I don't know,” he said, voice hoarse, acknowledging his own lie. “I don’t know what I'm supposed to do.”

She hummed, crossing her arms on her chest. “I guess we could just take a break and see where this goes,” she casually proposed, as Percy felt something heavy drop in his stomach. “I could use some alone time, too. I've got so much going on now that it would be complicated keeping things going as smoothly.”

He nodded understandingly, hugging himself, and massing his own arm. “Guess that's the best option,” he agreed, keeping his voice low.

“I also didn’t tell you this before, but,” she started after some moments of silence, her pink lips pressed into a thin line. “After our last fight, I thought about taking a break, too.”

Percy's head swiftly turned towards her yet again. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “I just knew it would have been difficult to make it work, from now on. For both of us. But I didn’t want to leave you because…” she pondered, a new hint of sadness in her expression. “Well, I guess I just love you. I don't want to think of my future without you in it. So, I tried.”

Percy felt the tears coming up again and, this time, he struggled to stop them from coming out. He stared at her expression and the golden locks around her tan face, and the lips he loved so much and her worn-down grey nail polish that he was so used to see her wear, while he let her words bounce back and forth in his skull.

She was his best friend. And, he could still be her best friend. He could still hug her, kiss her on the cheek, spin her around to make her scream, and fall asleep on her shoulder while watching bad horror movies at 1am. Just as that realization hit him, he felt a tear finally start to fall on his cheek.

He hugged her before she could notice it.

“I love you, wise girl,” he spoke huskily, trying not to let his voice crack and burying his face in her natural-shampoo scented hair.

After a moment, she hugged him back, holding him in her arms as she caressed his hair. “I love you too, dumbass,” she replied, and Percy felt his heart burst like some party popper, squeezing his eyes tight as new tears managed to come out.

As she pulled back, she held his face in her hands while breezily and swiftly drying his tears, smiling still with a tad of irony in her expression. “Do you want to go grab a milkshake?” She casually asked.

He just nodded, aware of his own colored cheeks and probably puffy eyes.

He still struggled to believe it to be true. But, if that was indeed a dream, he would have easily given up anything in his possession to not wake up. If Percy had ever doubted about his feelings for her, she had just reminded him why he was still so fond of her.

It was because she understood. She had always been one of the only persons to look at him in the eye and accept him regardless. They were still way different from each other, and had always been; she had never let it come between what they had, though. Now he was finally sure of something he probably too late realized he had never been convinced of until then. And that was, that she wasn't going to give up on him. She was his best friend.

And hearing her say it felt like the best feeling in the whole world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, final notes:  
> for the ones of you that may have noticed the change in rating, that's because I found out that I'm physically incapable of writing smut scenes from Percy's perspective. it may be because he's still Baby to me, even though I clearly don't seem to have the same approach to Nico when it comes to harder stuff. (nervously chuckles in incoherence). that's also why I removed some tags too.
> 
> also, I love Hazel. just wanted to put it out there.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cannot believe i actually managed to write this chapter.  
> this is the longest so far and i had to split it in two because it didn't seem to end so take it as the first part of a whole, but anyway, I'll be quick cause it's 4am and i should just sleep.
> 
> this chapter is weird, but please realize that six teenager boys often mean trouble and unwholesomeness, so that's what you're going to find here. i honestly had so much fun writing it so i hope you'll like it. enjoy and let me know (also i love you)

After his last conversation with Annabeth and their decision to both take some time off of their relationship, the last thing that Percy would have imagined to feel would have been lighter.

He had imagined the days following their conversation being full of remorse, guilt, and sadness; but that hadn’t totally been the case. Nothing actually felt like it had changed that much, except, maybe, Percy not feeling like a horrible person when he would catch himself thinking about Nico anymore. And, finally being able to experience those familiar feelings as just a normal crush, felt so liberating.

Annabeth had surely tried making it easier, keeping most of the small things they would do for each other alive, without any idea how much goodnight texts and lengthy conversations about sci-fi movies could comfort him. He felt like he could breathe again every time she would contact him first, sending pictures of a skateboard-shop window or the usual pile of books on her computer desk in her room. Percy was slowly starting to realize how much best-friend-potential they had always had in the first place; they had skipped that whole friends-to-lovers phase in their relationship from the start, going from acquaintances to dating almost straight away. It was nice being removed from all the responsibilities and commitments that came with their relationship.

Percy had actually never thought about how it would feel to be single again. But he had to admit, it was a weird kind of nice. Carefree feelings aside, the familiar feeling of loss, of missing something, still wouldn’t let him go. He didn’t know if that had to do with his first boy-crush or not; still, the person concerned surely wasn’t helping to keep up his mood.

A few days had passed from his face-to-face with Annabeth and, still, Nico hadn’t texted him.

Sure, it could have been because of the quantity of study material the younger boy had to go through, considering how his dad seemed the intransigent kind. It could have also not been Nico’s best month for his mental health, thinking back to the daunting pressure of the end of the school year adding to that of the upcoming tournament.

But, he could have at least let Percy know. He was dying to hear from him with the same frequency to which they were used to talk a few weeks prior, when Percy was still allowed to ask him how he was doing without getting a monosyllabic answer in return or a convenient “it’s not important” before Nico was offline again.

Dreaming about Nico nearly every night certainly couldn’t be good for his attention-starved brain, too. He was trying to keep from smothering him with texts and managed to keep his daily message count to a maximum of three, but he suspected Nico might have wanted him to tone it down even more. It wasn’t that Nico wasn’t answering him; it was just how he formulated his sentences, and his renewed reluctance to voice calling and gaming together. His excuse was always his need to “step up his private gaming schedule”, but Percy wasn’t dumb enough to not consider it just the tip of the iceberg he could spot from the surface. And, if only Nico could have let him in once in a while, he could have dived right in without complaining about the cold.

But, as always, it couldn’t be that simple.

Nothing was ever easy when it came to Nico, making him wonder (more often than not) what the hell he had gotten himself into for at least the third time that month. The recurring fantasies of Nico sharing his same feelings had always just painfully obviously turned into dreams, but never a reality.

Percy wasn’t ready to accept that just yet without trying, though.

Even though trying would have probably meant facing rejection and though, knowing Nico, the younger boy was not the type to leave space for mushy feelings.

But, it would have been okay. At least he could hope to move on before it would become something closely resembling love which, just thinking about it, would never fail to give him the creeps. His fear of being left alone had been awoken by the eventuality of Annabeth refusing to acknowledge him anymore and, frustratingly enough, had never left him again.

That had probably been the main reason why he had found himself feeling on edge one Wednesday afternoon, nose deep in his American literature homework essay for the following day, continuously spinning on his chair to avoid glancing at his notebook.

Turning towards his computer screen, he found his open Discord tab staring back at him, Nico’s chat sitting on second place after Jason’s. His status was still invisible as always, but Percy’s fingers didn’t mind as they started typing a message on his keyboard, stupidly asking him if he was free just for an excuse to talk. Mindlessly avoiding his thoughts and doubts getting in the way, he stared at his own message, his conscience keeping on screaming at him to get back to work.

He told himself staring at the screen while waiting for some kind of answer wasn’t worth it when its only function was to take him away from his responsibilities. Also, he wasn’t the type to wait for people. There was a reason _he_ was always the latecomer.

His head lowering on the pages again, his pen in hand and scribbling some tiny doodles on the side, he tried thinking about how Hemingway expressed his own issues with depression through poetry, even though everything he could think about was the image of him side-hugging Nico and him stepping aside on the sofa to make him sit beside him to watch a movie. And that frustrated him enough to stand up and pace around the room, throwing himself on the bed and get up again walk towards the kitchen to grab a half-finished bag of Cheetos from the cupboard before almost angrily sit back in his room.

He couldn’t ignore the pleasant feeling of surprise when he saw some new messages had appeared in the chat.

_ghost_king74: oi_

_ghost_king74: I’ll be on this evening around 7, that ok?_

Well, Percy thought. The whole point was gaming now, but he couldn’t say no while being so starved for interaction.

_FriedOct0pus: Yeah I mean, that’s fine too_

_FriedOct0pus: Wyd?_

He waited for a reply burying his hand deep in the plastic bag on his lap, extracting a handful of hot Cheetos, and devouring them in less than five seconds.

He stared at the writing sign on the chat, feeling completely helpless.

_ghost_king74: nothing important, u?_

Percy frowned as he felt the familiar frustration rise up inside his chest, faced with yet another dry answer.

He would have almost liked to punch something. Almost. And that _almost_ got him angrier at how much Nico could evidently affect his emotions and so easily mess with his feelings.

He licked the tips of his fingers in a rush before replying, few crumbs laying on the back of his hand.

_FriedOct0pus: Man, I’m asking you. Just tell me_

He didn’t reply to Nico’s question. He couldn’t guess the reason though, apart from not feeling like giving him anything he could ask for just out of spite.

The response took a while to come, but when it did, Percy felt something clench inside his stomach.

_ghost_king74: I’m telling you it’s nothing_

_ghost_king74: you remember that someone I was talking with?_

How could he not remember, Percy thought, when he considered that Will guy someone whose existence was making things at least twice as difficult and frustrating for him.

He sighed quietly before replying.

_FriedOct0pus: Ye, what about him?_

_ghost_king74: we’re kinda gaming together now_

_ghost_king74: like Portal 2 and all that_

_ghost_king74: we just completed a level like 5 min ago_

Percy read those last messages at least three times in a row.

The knot in his chest tightened, and he finally removed his eyes from the open tab.

He laid back on his chair, staring at the window beside his bed and feeling a bitter, stinging feeling traveling deep inside.

He played with the borders of the plastic bag on his lap, his lips pressed into a thin line.

So that was why Nico hadn’t been available lately, Percy thought sourly. He couldn’t manage to comprehend how he had been so stupid not to notice. Or, better, to ignore and deny that something had started to feel wrong from the start of those few weeks. The thought of having an exclusive relationship with the other boy had never felt that pathetic to his own eyes.

And now that Nico’s confession was staring back at him from the screen, he did feel rejected to say the least. It could have also been defined as feeling disappointed, annoyed, and maybe humiliated, but he really didn’t want to linger into any of those.

He realized the denial being completely useless when he finally put his chip bag aside before taking a hold of his keyboard, his conscience begging him to take it slow and please think about the consequences. He didn’t listen, but he did at least try to mitigate his words to not let any incriminating emotions transpire.

_FriedOct0pus: Sounds cool_

_FriedOct0pus: Congrats on the wedding_

He closed the tab out of anger without a second thought.

Feeling uncomfortably numb, he got up from his chair and grabbed his chip bag before storming out of his room and towards the living room. The plan for the rest of the evening would have probably been to sit in front of the TV, mindlessly taking in whatever half-interesting program he could find while avoiding the thoughts in his own head like the plague.

It didn’t work, though, because whatever small thing reminding him of Nico would lead him back to those goddamn messages and how the other had just casually told him he was probably thinking about that Will guy much more than Percy would have liked, and that didn’t sit right with him. Actually, he hated it. And he hated how he couldn’t take his mind off of this and how the image of Nico smiling because of that guy and not because of him lingered in his mind like some painful bruise. Thinking that made him cringe, hard, at his own self for being so obviously desperate for Nico to just look at him, _seeing_ him. He had to admit that he had replayed the fantasy of the younger boy staying up late thinking of him while staring at his ceiling more times than necessary, along with having hoped to spot even a tiny, subtle sign that Nico would have been okay with Percy crushing on him. He directed that anger towards himself for letting those three messages get to his head that much, and he started wishing for a switch in his mind to flick and turn off all those cheesy, sore feelings in his chest since he had absolutely no idea what to do with them, anymore.

He had promised himself he would have done as much as he could to make Nico like him, but he had completely ignored the fact that one can’t _make_ people crush on them. And, how he would have liked to be completely wrong about that. He would have been ready to waste all his time just convincing Nico to fall for him, if there had been one sound way to do it.

But what was he expecting, in the end? Nico to fall in his arms while declaring his love to him with a love letter against a sunset on the beach, like some shitty romantic comedy movie?

That would have been kind of nice, he thought, but life just didn’t work that way. He had been dense enough to think it could, and he acknowledged that now. He had also been not mature enough to decently reply to those messages without being passive-aggressive.

He ran his hand down on his face.

The irritation didn’t hint at leaving him soon; so, he slouched down on the soft cushions of the sofa, still avidly munching the hot Cheetos in his hands while looking at yet another episode of some stupid baking show with those stupid chocolate cakes and chocolate muffins that he would have gladly liked to crush with his own hands if given the chance.

When Paul came back home before that evening, finding him laying down on the sofa surrounded by empty snack wraps, he rightfully questioned if he had managed to finish that essay he was having difficulties with the day before. After purposefully ignoring him, though, Percy mindlessly replied with a cold-hearted “who fucking cares about that shit anyway” before pulling his comfort blanket around himself and crossing his arms, probably looking way angrier than he actually was. He did manage to feel bad about that exchange soon after, though, when Paul just replied with a dismissing (yet understanding) comment that Percy was definitely not expecting. Not replying yet again, he kept on staring at the screen in front of him feeling absolutely nothing regarding both his pending study duties and the fact he had managed to empty half of the kitchen cabinet’s contents in less than two hours and, registering the fact that watching TV was definitely not helping him get away from himself, he reluctantly got up, grumbling and directing himself towards his room.

Even glancing at his computer felt painful, so he reached for his phone on the bed instead. He stood up as he checked his messages, trying to ignore his Discord message notifications as much as possible. He distracted himself scanning through the memes Leo had sent on their group chat and Travis’s messages complaining about his and Connor’s five-year-old brother yet again, until the temptation of knowing if Nico had replied to his last messages became too much to handle.

Hoping for the satisfaction of having provoked a reaction, he had to admit he should have expected not to be satisfied with the answer at all.

The message just read “I’ve never mentioned a wedding”, making Percy’s desire to punch something even stronger. So, he didn’t answer.

Instead, he focused on Hazel’s chat, which was asking him for a match. When being just the two of them, Percy had to admit their matches to be more fun than the ones with Nico simply because of Hazel’s ability to put him at ease; even though honestly, he couldn’t imagine someone who would _not_ feel at ease with her. She was surprisingly accepting and understanding for a game veteran, distinguishing her from the great majority of the self-important players of which Percy loved to ruin reputations.

Saying no to her was never an option considering the tournament approaching, so he accepted. A bit distantly for his own standards, but he hoped she didn’t mind. Talking with someone was what he would have least liked to do, but he could make exceptions. Especially when it came to her cheerful voice that had never asked him any kind of personal question apart from details about his headset and his computer’s model. No kind of touchy-feely conversations, and Percy was good like that.

Sitting back down, he tightened his fists around his controller after he put on his headphones. If he hoped to stop thinking about his boy-crush for at least one minute, the only way he could hope to accomplish that was to put his mind to good use.

He just had to wait. The stinging feeling would have subsided and, with that, his high hopes for his and Nico’s relationship. He didn’t have enough mental capacity left in his limited brain functions to think about something that probably wasn’t going to happen, and to someone that probably didn’t care much about him.

With that specific mantra in mind he started playing in duo and, if Hazel noticed him being less bubbly than usual, she gratefully chose to ignore it.

During their first match, he decided to land on the center of what he knew would have been the chosen battlefield for the start of the game. South-west of the map, in a small village full of broken-down statues, a worn away temple, and grey-stone, two-story houses. He let his shotgun channel his anger and release it onto whoever was unlucky enough to find themselves in his line of sight, Hazel behind him. She even complimented him when he spotted a sniper on a far hillside before her, using a temple column as shield as he switched to a more long-range weapon and ran towards the sniper in question, realizing probably too late that it had not been the smartest move. Luckily, he ended up downing them after using Poseidon’s special ability to fire from behind the huge wave formed around him. “I like your confidence,” Hazel giggled then, when she came up to him with her Apollo character to patch him up in between a tall grass field, out of sight from possible enemies still lurking around.

Percy simply thanked her, falling back into his unusual silence.

At some point during their match, both silently running towards the center of the map (except for occasional comments about where to go next or if sticking together), Percy heard her inhale hesitantly before talking.

“Hey, Percy,” she called, not really capturing his full attention.

There was not much he could do about that.

“Yeah?” He replied, unintentionally dry.

“It might be just me, but you seem a bit down,” she observed.

He had expected her to at least notice he didn’t have much in common with his usual self.

What he really didn’t want to do was getting into the reasons why, though. ‘I found out your cousin interacts with other male people his age apart from me and now I feel jealous’ didn’t seem like the best thing to say, since she probably didn’t want to hear about his cringy heart problems. Also, he simply didn’t want to tell.

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged, pinging a looting spot to let her know where he was headed. “It’ll pass, though. I’ll move on.”

She hummed lowly before speaking again, tone softer. “I’m not here to be your therapist, but I can listen if you’d like to,” she casually said, probably to avoid being pushy. “I’m pretty good at that.”

“It’s nothing, really,” he lied, channeling all the fake self-composure through his tone. “Broke up with my girlfriend last week. It’s probably that.”

“I get it,” she promptly replied. “You don’t have to talk about that. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he clarified, even though he had promised himself not to unnecessarily talk about that issue with people. He had to keep up the act somehow, though. “We’re actually on really good terms. It just wasn’t made to last too long, y’know. People change.”

“Sounds right,” she agreed sympathetically. “If something’s ever bothering you and you wanna let it out, anyway, I don’t mind. Start considering me part of the team.”

Percy let her words echo in his head, and felt something soften inside him. The knot in his stomach loosened enough to finally make him breathe, and he blamed it on her mellow voice and the fact that it reminded him of his mom. It was like she was talking to someone she cared about, and he let himself imagine her actually worrying about him.

Which probably wasn’t true, anyway.

“Thank you,” he replied, meaning it. A small smile appeared on his face. “You’re already part of the team, though, man. I definitely wouldn’t change you for anyone else.”

He heard the quiet, huffed laugh she let out onto her mic. “I just hope to live up to the expectation,” she said smiling, before that small chuckle led Percy’s mind to wander, again, exactly towards what he was trying hard to ignore.

“You will,” he mindlessly replied, letting the frustration take a hold of him once again.

He managed to be killed at least three times unnecessarily right after that, but he blamed it on his clear temporary self-control impairment. He honestly just wanted to kill. And, possibly, win to chase away the looping thoughts about him not being enough for anyone, or anything specifically. Calming himself down and soothing himself when people would get in the way was out of question when he couldn’t find a single reason to play at the best of his abilities.

It wasn’t like Nico seemed to care, anyway. He wasn’t even there to see him improve, or succeed.

If he had expected his inferiority complex to fade away in a matter of days, he had been horribly wrong. That usual spark of energy that he could feel every morning upon waking up still wasn’t there the following days, despite not influencing his hyperactivity or his attention span; his legs stayed as restless as always, his mind still seemed to work at 2x speed, and his mouth would utter the same amount of bullshit as he was used to.

The only thing it affected was everything else internal that people either didn’t see, or didn’t care to. There was no reason for what he was doing anymore, including gaming. He felt like a plane on autopilot since his mind had decided to always be busy thinking about something else apart from the issue at hand. He tried blaming it on stress and the approaching deadlines for his final projects he still hadn’t completed but, even when he tried putting in some effort, he would always end up asking his mom for help to finish at past 11pm, spending the rest of his free time in front of the TV eating ice-cream and his mom’s fresh chocolate cookies that she had promised him every time he completed an assignment.

Percy didn’t fail to notice how she was still giving him those sympathetic eyes as to say ‘I know it’s hard’. He couldn’t say if she knew of his issues outside of school, though. He did not intend to tell her soon, anyway. Not to her, not to Paul, and of course not to Annabeth either. His friends didn’t seem to know about Nico’s existence yet, which was weird, since he had been certain that Leo knowing it (from Jason) would end up with everyone else in their circle knowing too.

So, he was alone yet again. Nothing had changed from a few weeks prior and, actually, things had probably gotten progressively worse as the days went by. He didn’t have Annabeth to rely on anymore; at least not in those situations. He was still reluctant to talk to her about Nico, because he couldn’t help but think about the pain in her voice when they had last spoken. He didn’t want to put her in a position where she would have had to know about the person that caused them to split in the first place. And, he really did try to keep her out of that, even though it was becoming hard not to slip from time to time. He was too afraid of telling his mom about the whole rejection-situation, since he was still certain she had labeled his break-up with Annabeth one big, huge mistake. She didn’t have to know about the possibility that it had all been completely useless, and also probably even detrimental for his own happiness.

He found himself staring at the ceiling a couple of times that week, listening to the frantic thoughts in his skull, wondering when the hell did he allow himself to let his life become such an emotional mess. And, love had always definitely been all but logical and orderly, he knew, and he liked it that way. It was just the feeling of being left alone that would make him feel extremely uncomfortable with himself, feeling like jumping out of his own skin and onto another; maybe a handsomer, taller, non-ADHD version of him. And with better hair, for Christ’s sake, because he was getting sick and tired of finding them falling in front of his eyes and poking at his eyeballs. From there, he would typically end up filling out a list of all the things he would have actively, and pointlessly, paid to change about himself. Like his habit of cracking his knuckles and always rhythmically bob his head when listening to music, or the way he tripped on road bumps and other people’s feet when walking, even when trying to look down at his feet to avoid embarrassing himself in public. He didn’t particularly like his thin button nose, even though people seemed to always be envious of it. He found his facial features way too soft, and would have honestly offered half of his possessions (which wasn’t a lot, but still,) for someone to sharpen them and turn them into how a man’s should be. He didn’t dig the way his hair curled up when it was damp outside because they made him look like a fifth-grader. And so on so forth, always wondering if people would manage to notice those details about him and if they would end up thinking about him differently because of them.

It was a crazy thought, but, maybe, Nico would have liked him if he just wasn’t aware of what Percy looked like. He had no idea of Nico’s taste in men, even though he had always tried and guessed. The thing was, every possible option in his mind would end up still looking way more handsome than him. Or, simply, completely different. If only he knew what that Will guy looked like, he could maybe hope to be more accurate; but, in the end, not knowing was probably better since the guy had all the potential to cause Percy to stomp feet on his own self-esteem with anger.

The first time he had those kinds of thoughts he had gone to bed early, staring at his own hands in the dim light, impatiently waiting for his legs to impossibly sit still, while being angry at the world and wanting to slap himself in the face multiple times. He fell asleep dreaming of not the happiest things, and woke up feeling bad about his own reflection in the mirror. The second time, he had managed to shake his head, labeling those confidence issues and inferiority complexes as his mind coming up with bullshit to sabotage him, and got up from his bed to try and do something about his life spiraling out of control. Again.

He had promised Hazel to be online again that evening, and he honestly would have preferred to do literally everything apart from burying his nose deep in his books again and think about the fact that he was never going to make it to a good grade. So he jumped on his chair, sighing and logging in to his Steam account before starting the game.

Five minutes later, their characters were about to drop from their flying ship. With every time in which Nico would not show up, though, Percy’s irritation and disappointment would keep on accumulating. He was not enjoying the feeling of steam building up inside him like lava inside a volcano.

“Hey there, man,” Hazel cheered, managing to drag him out of his train of thought. “How’s it going today?”

Percy smiled softly, to no one in particular. “Fine, I guess,” he replied, voice low.

“You guess?” She inquired.

“Yeah, I mean,” he started, unsure of what to say. He let a few seconds pass in silence before giving up. “Too much stuff on my mind lately.”

“You’re not having second thoughts about the tournament, are you?” She questioned inquisitively. “’Cause if that’s the case…”

“What? No!” He rushed. “Are you kidding? That’s probably my best project so far. And that says a lot.”

“Thank God,” she sighed before giggling. “I thought Nico was pressing you or something. He can be a bit of an obnoxious hard-head sometimes.”

Percy knew all about that. He scoffed. “I noticed.”

“I bet you did,” she replied, after which he realized he might have come off more bitter than he should have been. “Don’t get me wrong, though, he does that with goodwill. It’s his way to show he cares.”

Percy tried concentrating on the task at hand, which was that of keeping on searching for a new armor for himself instead of wandering about what Nico might have been doing.

He raised his eyebrows. “Wonder what he’s like with people he _doesn’t_ like.”

“Right?” She replied, after which he realized he had probably said that last bit louder than he had intended. “I found out he simply ignores them, though. Wish I could be like him on that sometimes.”

“Confrontation is good sometimes,” Percy commented, tone dry. “I tend to enjoy direct communication, y’know. The kind where you don’t have to ask what’s wrong before you’re told,” he continued, talking to no one in particular anymore. “Makes things a lot less messy.”

Hazel kept quiet for a second or so, making him quickly realize the implications of his words. He facepalmed himself internally before opening his mouth to reiterate. “I mean, just sayin’,” he stated, making the not-so-hidden message of his comment even less hidden. “Nothing wrong with ignoring, though. Really.”

“Right…” Hazel replied, slowly, kindly letting Percy know she hadn’t bought on any of his bullshit. “Uh, sorry to ask, but… did something happen?”

 _Shit_.

“No,” was Percy’s automatic response. “I mean, depends. Why’re you asking?”

“It’s nothing, man,” Hazel told him. “I trust your word. If you say nothing’s happened, it’s all good.”

Percy sat feeling the guilt poking at his chest, and slowly exhaled to calm himself down.

If Nico was ignoring him, why the heck couldn’t he do the same? He had the right to ignore him, too. To _not_ talk about him.

He had already felt exposed when he had started asking for relationship advice and when he had realized he was actually crushing on him. Why did Percy have to do all the fucking job while Nico was probably sitting down in his comfortable home gaming and talking and laughing with someone else that wasn’t him? Someone he was _actually_ interested in?

The feeling of irritation ignited yet again inside his throat.

“Yeah, it really is nothing, I was just…” Percy hesitated. Deciding to play it off like he didn’t care just to cover up the huge part of him that was actually dying for an answer, he turned to a more casual tone. “Talking about Nico, any chance he’ll be showing up soon?”

Hazel hummed thoughtfully. “He told me he’d been busy with extra homework, but I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I bet you hear from him way more than me, though.”

That comment sank deep into his chest, feeding that stinging sensation he was starting to hate.

He felt most of his feelings evaporate from his words when he spoke.

“I don’t hear much from him either,” he replied. “That’s why I asked.”

The silence on the other end of the line puzzled him. His brows knotted together before she spoke again.

“Really?” She asked, baffled. “He must’ve really been busy then.”

That made Percy’s frown more evident. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you two seemed relatively close,” she replied, making Percy start to crave silence for once in his life.

Or really loud music to cover his thoughts. Everything apart from the sound of that conversation.

“Yeah,” was Percy’s only lifeless reply after a moment of silence. “I’d like to know where he stands in that regard.”

Percy couldn’t believe she had managed to push that out of his mouth like that. He didn’t even exactly feel better.

“Oh God,” Hazel murmured, followed by a huge sigh. “What’d he do? He’s ignoring you, isn’t he?”

Percy definitely hadn’t expected that answer.

“Uh,” he started, dumbfounded. He quickly opted for the most evasive answer. “Why’d you ask?”

“Christ, he can be such a jerk,” she murmured again, and Percy felt kinda glad he wasn’t the only one thinking that. “I know it sounds like I’m taking sides here, but it’s not what it looks like. He’s just completely unaware of other people’s feelings sometimes ‘cause he’s too wrapped up in his own personal understanding of the situation,” she continued to explain, even though Percy’s own understanding had flown out the window halfway through her last sentence. She sighed again. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll talk to him when we’re done.”

Percy’s eyes widened when he thought about the possible consequences. “No!” He exclaimed. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, he should be quick enough to figure it out by himself.”

“He’s not,” was Hazel’s resigned reply. “I mean, I love him, but he’s got some shitty social skills, man. You have no idea what it’s like to be with him around people.”

Percy couldn’t retort, simply because it felt like he had, seriously, no idea.

The only interactions he had observed between Nico and other people had always seemed smooth enough for a reclusive introvert. He probably wasn’t aware of the whole picture, though. He had just never thought about Nico as timid.

“He’s really that shy?” Percy questioned.

“It’s a different kind of shy,” she explained. “He’s the kind of person who finds it appropriate to point out how wigs on people’s heads look fake. He tends to do that in people’s faces, so it’s not pretty to see…” she continued, before stopping herself. “Don’t tell him I’ve said that. Social awkwardness is one of his sore spots.”

After picturing Nico as one of those children coming up to people at the mall just to let them know about their ugly make-up, and actually recognizing that image as pretty coherent with Nico’s persona, Percy let his mind connect the pieces together.

A sense of dread loomed over him for a brief moment, and he felt compelled to ask. “Wait, does it mean I did something wrong?”

“I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she replied, probably completely unaware of the guilt chewing on his insides in the meantime. “Let me talk to him. Takes a while, but I can usually make him even when he doesn’t want to.”

How Percy would have liked to know how to do that, too.

But she didn’t need to know that.

“Don’t tell him I asked,” he uttered, not completely sure about the words to use. “I mean, I don’t want him to feel bad. Or something.”

She giggled. “Sure. Mouth sealed,” she promised. “It’s a matter of principle anyway. I don’t think you deserve that treatment. Yet.”

“Thank you…” he answered before he could process that last part. “Wait, what?”

She actually snickered, this time. “I’m just kidding. You’re a cool guy. I get why Nico wanted you in his team.”

Feeling the bothering feelings finally subside, the corners of his mouth turned upwards as he smiled mindlessly at her voice. He couldn’t shake off the thought that he had ended up placing his own duties and doubts onto her but, if he had to be honest with himself, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to maintain a coherent and mature conversation in that specific setting. Jealousy always seemed to get the best of him and, if anger was involved, he was almost sure he would have said things he would have regretted later.

So, he let it be without complaining. Not without any difficulties, though.

They did end up in the second position before both he and she were off to their own duties: him to his two papers to write, and her to her programmed conversation. Percy would have liked his curiosity to simply accept that there was no way he was going to know the contents of that discussion, despite he was dying to know. But, considering his eagerness to know basically everything about Nico himself, he guessed he could live without that information, too.

He also resisted the urge to ask Hazel what they had talked about the following day, trying to focus on Jason’s hang out night that Friday.

One of the advantages of his mind was that it was often so full of stuff that it was usually ridiculously easy to lose track of one single thought; at least for a short time. He managed not to think about his conversation with Hazel an obsessive amount of times before he was finally off heading towards Jason’s house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Sun already setting and his longboard’s wheels roughly scratching the concrete, he had one of his rare moments of peace and clarity of mind in weeks just as he was about to cross Central Park. Looking right ahead of him and seeing people and cars and shops speeding beside him, just barely distinguishable by his eyes, he found a temporary sense of belongingness in the velocity. Maybe, that was how he was supposed to live like; maybe, in another universe, everything flowed much, much faster and he had just been one of the unfortunate ones born in this slow, boring world. Maybe that was also why he still felt like nobody could truly understand him. Yes, people could get close to him and try to see the world through his eyes, but he had never met someone who could actually see directly through him, _with_ him. Someone walking in the same pair of stinky, worn-out, loose-fitting shoes. He certainly didn’t contribute to people’s understanding, being terrible at explaining himself sometimes; and he did also suck at making people empathize with him when he had the tendency to drawn more annoying than understanding looks. Still, he knew the one person in the world who could validate and accept his experiences as they were, and _mean_ it, had always just been himself.

Friends, family, and romantic interests were nice to have around, but he would have always been the only one having his own back, for better or worse. And the feeling of his mind being his friend would always be liberating for that minute or two, right before it would go back to its usual glitchy, messy self, without him being able to remember the content of his thoughts anymore.

Holding his longboard with one hand, he trotted towards the white front door of Jason’s residence and rang the golden bell to its side.

“Identify thyself, unknown wayfarer,” Charles’ voice spoke to him through the intercom, fully aware of the camera pointed directly at Percy’s face.

“New York’s pizza,” he replied, a corner of his mouth turning up.

“What kind of pizza?” What sounded like Connor’s voice chimed in the background.

“Salami,” he replied in all seriousness. “A big one.”

“Let him in!” Connor replied again, after which Percy heard Charles grunt, disgusted, before opening the door.

Percy grinned, trapping Charles in a side-hug before he could peek at the others already arranged on the living room’s sofa and armchairs, closing the door behind him.

“Where’s my pizza?” Connor asked, turning around from his spot on the lounge with a pretend-clueless expression.

“Right here if you want it,” he replied, pointing at his crotch.

“We all know you’re the one swallowing here, oldie,” Travis chimed over Leo’s greetings, as the curly boy headed towards Percy to exchange a quick hug.

As Percy looked towards Travis’s position on the armchair closer to the maxi TV, though, he did feel a kind of uncomfortableness rising up to his chest and towards his throat. Finding his own temporary lack of humor a bit unsettling, he frowned slightly at his own impossibility to answer.

“Travis, I’m afraid you’re projecting again,” Jason casually spoke while coming back from the kitchen, and Percy took his time adjusting on his spot on the right end of the sofa.

“You got the wrong brother, Jassy,” was Travis’s reply, finger raising towards Connor. “We were just mentioning that guy in your art class, right, little bro? Did he find your love letters anywhere?”

“I’m telling you he’s straight!” Connor exclaimed and, by the exasperated tone, not for the first time.

“As straight as you were two years ago, or…?”

“Ugh,” Connor commented, interrupting his brother. “Don’t remind me. Worst years of my life.”

Percy was starting to feel uneasy about that whole conversation, and his eyes kept on scanning the room for subtle glances from either Jason or Leo, which never came. Both minding their own business, Jason sat with his phone in hand, and Leo was already directed towards Jason’s PS4 to press the power button. He shouldn’t have been worried about the others at all, but the feeling of being watched and silently judged by eyes just waiting for him to say something he would have regretted.

“Was the closet really that bad?” Percy finally asked, fidgeting with his hands and raising an eyebrow at Connor.

The curly-haired boy just casually shrugged beside him, mouth turned down. “I guess I just feel like my true self now,” he explained. “Like some gay butterfly, or something.”

“Cheesy,” Travis commented under his breath.

“Did you know that sharing genes heightens the probability of family members also being gay?” Jason chimed matter-of-factly, not bothering to look up from his phone.

“Just leave it, Jassy,” Connor replied with a dismissive gesture of the hand. “He’s got a bucket full of internalized homophobia.”

“What’s all that about?” Travis asked, puzzled, but Leo was already turning towards them with a proud expression asking who was up for a _Tekken 7_ match before they could all go out to grab dinner.

Since Charles’ favorite activity had always been that of showing other people how good he was at everything he did, he was the first to accept the challenge. Both of them choosing one of the biggest guys just for convenience’s sake, they ended up swallowed by the game for around half an hour; in the meantime, Jason had already walked the stairs to the basement to steal one of his dad’s Tuscan reds from his reserve in those wooden cells rich people used to stack wine. He sat back down again on the armchair near the coffee table in front of the TV to extract the cap with his expert bottle-opening skills and a shiny silver corkscrew. Connor was the one that had been kind enough to bring plastic cups from the kitchen to allow Jason to share the alcohol between them. Both Travis and Percy kept on spurring Charles and Leo, hoping they would have provided them both with something to laugh at, but Charles seemed the only one with a flammable competitive spirit; Leo’s only concern had apparently become his crushes on half of all the female characters, probably due to his love for idealized Asian women.

As Percy started sipping on the wine in his cup like beer, he had already accepted that he wasn’t going to feel proud of himself the next morning. Still, holding no responsibility towards a possible angry and disappointed girlfriend anymore was giving him a free pass for almost every stupid thing he just knew was going to carry out if given the chance: and that included drinking whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and poison himself with alcohol and smoke until he would have passed out on the sofa.

He wasn’t sure that whole set of instincts didn’t actually have to do with the fact that the feeling of rejection and helplessness that came with thinking about Nico still hadn’t subsided in that whole week, but that definitely wasn’t the moment to think about his relational problems.

After the first three matches, Leo finally seemed to remember that a bottle of his aunt’s tequila was still laying in his bag and, also because of Leo’s extensive (and pretty useless, to be honest) knowledge of cocktails, they ended up trying a mix of tequila, orange juice, and pomegranate juice (which Leo insisted in calling “grenadine”) in a cheaper version of a tequila sunrise. When only half the tequila bottle was left, they were all pleasantly surprised to find themselves positively tipsy. Since Percy had been one of the few who had already tried a tequila sunrise once at a (pretty illegal at that point, but who cared) party, but one of the few who had never tried a margarita, he found it necessary to ask Leo to also satisfy his curiosity on that regard. Finding out they were out of triple sec, and Leo refusing to just leave it be and pretend he was serving them a true margarita, he announced he was going to the store to buy some. It was only after they had reminded him that he was technically still seventeen years old and that he, consequently, wasn’t allowed in liquor stores, that he pouted and got angry at his own self for not “growing up faster”. Since none of them liked a sad Leo and their stomachs were starting to protest anyway for the lack of food, they decided to let Charles drive them to the nearest bodega and fast food to gather all the provisions they would have needed for the night. After both Charles and Jason had evaluated the former’s sobriety status using field sobriety tests learned from his cop dad, they all judged the dark-skinned boy to probably be the only one still in his right enough mind to pass a driving test without too many deducted points for any missed street signs. Also, the fact that his dad was a cop could have given them free passes, just in case someone would have bothered them and they would have had to talk themselves out of their mess. None of them had ever been sure about that last claim, but all of them did ignore the doubts creeping in when talking about drinking and driving. That wasn’t something Percy enjoyed doing or encouraged, but that did seem like a minimal infraction for an important cause: their hunger, and Leo’s well-being.

Also, they needed beers anyway.

They all hopped inside Charles’ mom’s 6-seater chevy truck, grateful for the fact Charles had just completed all the paperwork for his class D license and was finally allowed on the road without any kind of anxiety surrounding the whole curfew-and-no-kids-in-the-car kind of regulations, and started to head towards the closest corner store they could find. They always had the same scheme: Charles, Jason, and Connor in the front, being the less probable to make a cop angry between them all, and Percy, Leo, and Travis and on the backseats just because they were usually the noisiest and easily-distracting (in addition to distract _ed_ ) ones. This time, it was because they were probably the most buzzed out of the six, too, in that precise order. Also, imposing-black-guy driving next to Hispanic-boy and white-boy-dressed-in-skater-wear were probably not a good combination to avoid trouble, no matter how much thinking about it that way bothered Percy.

“How’re we gonna construct the act?” Charles asked, focusing on the road ahead.

“Let me and little bro here let out our best characters,” Travis replied from the window seat, pointing at Connor in front of him and patting the front seat. “I’m good at playing the good guy.”

“And I’m good at patching up his mess,” Connor replied. “Like calming down that old dude at the gas station.”

“That doesn’t count since I wasn’t actually stealing anything!” Travis retorted, annoyed. “He just had some bad cataracts or something.”

“Whatever you say.”

Percy glanced back between one and the other, catching the annoyed look on Travis’ face, and threw him an amused smirk.

Stopping near the first corner store they could find, Travis and Connor exchanged glances before they were both jumping off the truck. While Jason and Charles chatted about some obscure underground trap artist’s new album, Percy and Leo flattened their faces against the car window to get a glimpse of the scene before they realized it would have been more convenient to just roll the window down. Travis walked in front, Connor behind him, as they placed themselves on the corner of the store, far from the glass doors, and waited. After a few minutes in which Percy definitely had had the opportunity to distract himself by playing with his phone, Leo called him from his window spot.

“They’re some lucky bastards,” Leo murmured as Percy slid beside him and looked outside to see the two brothers smiling and chatting with a white-haired, red-faced man coming up from the street’s corner.

The man did seem like the type to talk a lot, though, since they did stand on their feet for at least five minutes before Travis handed him a single bill and the old man strolled inside. After what felt like an eternity, the guy emerged from the store holding at least three bags, two of which ended up in Travis’ hands. Percy frowned, puzzled by not having noticed the guy’s car nearby, until the older brother started walking down the street, grandpa right behind him.

“What’s up with the bag carrying?” Percy asked then, already impatient and now clearly confused.

“Connor’s coming,” Leo noticed as the wavy-haired boy trotted towards the truck. “So you’re boy-whores now?”

“Travis’s escorting him home ‘cause he’s a lonely old boomer with a bunch of beer and frozen pizza in his bags,” Connor explained with his back against the car door. “The president was mentioned and they both sit on the right, so now Johnny’s reciting him all of Trump’s election campaign. Go figure.”

“Who’s Johnny?”

“The dude’s name.”

“So he really _is_ a john,” Leo suddenly commented, looking at both of them with a sly smile. It faded when he realized none of them were laughing. “That wasn’t my best.”

Percy just patted him slightly on the shoulder before he adjusted back on his seat and took out his phone.

He continued his _Subway Surf_ game as he listened to whatever Charles’s phone was playing for Jason to hear. Just some guy complaining about his love interest not really acknowledging him led Percy’s thoughts to, somehow, flow back to his usual state of mind in which Nico wasn’t interested in him, and breaking up with Annabeth had been the worst mistake of his life. It wasn’t a peaceful mindset, especially considering that he had seriously hoped Hazel would have convinced Nico to at least confess he would have rather spent a whole day at a funfair than think about being with him. But, he never did. The younger boy hadn’t even contacted him, which left Percy angry and pathetically stubborn for still wanting to try, staring at Nico’s number every single night and gathering some courage to click on the dial button. He had even started playing with his phone, Nico’s number on the screen, faithfully thinking that if his finger would have ended up on the dial button by mistake, he wouldn’t have done anything to stop the call from being delivered to the other side.

Obviously, that didn’t happen. Meanwhile, his thoughts swirled directly into the recent memories of Nico’s face, realizing it had the same effect as watching a movie one too many times.

He’d had enough of just those. The other, though, didn’t seem too keen on seeing him again, which was slowly starting to eat yet another hole inside him.

“Woah, who died?” Leo asked, a bit quieter, his brown locks getting close to Percy’s cheek as he observed the screen. “Man, you still digging this?”

“What if I do?” Percy asked dryly.

“Looked like you just watched your grandma fall down the stairs,” Leo continued. “Wrong assumption, I guess.”

Percy glanced at him when his character stopped running, and he rushed to explain. “No, I was… thinking.”

“Is this about Anne?” Leo asked, tone mushy, laying a hand on Percy’s shoulder.

“No,” was Percy’s quick reply before he felt his own reluctance to talk about the subject kick in. “I mean, yes, a bit. I’m fine, though.”

“You say?”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing wrong with talking about feelings with your brother…”

“I don’t need to talk feelings, man.”

“That does sound like a cry for help.”

“Just leave it be, Leo,” Jason interrupted from the front seats, and Percy was glad to at least have someone on his side. “And hope Travis’ll be back soon so we can eat. I’m starving.”

“Oookay dad, no need to get all tight,” Leo replied, crossing his arms and adjusting on his seat. He laid his knees against the seat in front of him with a pout Percy wasn’t entirely sure was unintentional.

Percy looked at him feeling like the big brother who had just won a fight with his parents, and restarted his game. Until something stood out to him as odd. He was glad Leo hadn’t mentioned any other “love interest”, but he seemed too clueless and had been too discrete for his own standards. He suspected Jason hadn’t talked with Leo about that whole boy-crush thing, to which he couldn’t help but raise his gaze towards the blonde guy on the seat in front of him with a look of realization and gratitude.

Could it be that Jason was waiting for him to come out himself without outing him to anyone, since he had intuitively learned that Percy was still struggling to accept the fact himself?

Christ, now he remembered where all those soft, loving feelings for his best friend came from. Percy couldn’t deny that if he had never met Nico, Jason would have probably been his next crush. He needed to remind himself to thank Nico for coming along early enough; realizing you swing both ways because you’re crushing on your very-straight-male best friend didn’t sound like the time of anyone’s life.

After those considerations and the realization that no one there apart from Jason probably knew about his little secret, he managed to finally relax the tense muscles in his shoulders and stopped feeling like someone could have stricken a first in his gut from one second to the next.

Finding himself laying down the seats with his head upside down over the end twenty minutes later while blasting some old-school hip hop from his phone’s speakers, he heard Connor call for Travis just outside the car door.

“Where the hell have you been?” Charles asked over the music, starting up the car without wasting any more time.

“Did you get a house tour?”

Travis glanced at the curly-haired boy and scoffed at Leo’s last comment and mischievous smile. “Better,” he replied, rummaging through his plastic bag and extracting a full bottle of Jack Daniel’s to display. “Dude said he didn’t need this anymore because he’s senile anyway and alcohol messes with his Viagra. So I took it, since it’s me and my twin’s birthday anyway.”

“Wasn’t your birthday like, two weeks ago?” Leo asked, clueless, and wide-eyed. “ _And_ no way you got a twin.”

“Johnny doesn’t know that,” Connor replied, closing the car door behind him, as Travis did just a moment later, waiting for Percy to adjust in his seat in a decent position in between him and Leo.

Now, they had more than a beer each and a bottle of jack at their feet, classic tag and everything. Percy smirked towards Travis’ direction and jokingly put his elbow on his shoulder. “You gonna share that?”

“Like hell, I almost sold my ass for that bottle,” Travis commented, pushing away Percy’s arm.

That didn’t discourage him. “You’re okay with not tasting kush today, then?”

Travis seemed to hesitate. He looked at Percy with a scrutinizing gaze, holding one finger in front of his face. “One drag, one shot. Take or leave.”

“You know how much that shit costs me?” Percy lamented, tone uninterested and arms crossed on his chest. “A glass is all I’m gonna allow. Only thing you spent on that was ten minutes of your time and a conversation about Trump.”

“You ever heard of ‘time is money’?” Travis argued.

“I disagree,” Jason chimed, annoyed, but Travis talked over him before he could finish. “ _Time is money_ where I come from.”

“Explains why you’re always broke,” Jason chimed again, and Travis slapped the back of the other’s seat before opening his mouth to retaliate. Percy held back a chuckle.

“Guys, you can discuss shots and weed when we’ve got something to eat,” Charles patiently interrupted. “KFC or McDonald’s?”

“Is that even a question?” Percy asked, laying forward and placing both his elbows in the spaces between the seats in front of him.

“Why are they even the only two options?” Travis asked. “Isn’t Burger King a thing, too?”

“Who the fuck prefers Burger King over fucking McDonald’s?” Percy asked surprised, turning around to face Travis’s skeptical expression.

“Someone that knows fucking _McDonald’s_ puts worms in their fucking burgers,” Travis continued, seeming scarily sure of what he was saying.

Percy stared at him, definitely confused.

“Here we go again…” Connor muttered over Leo’s voice.

“If that’s the case, those worms are damn good, not gonna lie...”

“That’s one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard in my whole life,” Jason commented, seemingly to no one.

“That’s ‘cause I read the news and you don’t,” Travis replied.

Jason chuckled. “What, are you going to argue that the Earth is flat now?” He questioned sarcastically, and Travis pretend-laughed.

“I’m not going to eat there anyway. Burger King’s got onion rings,” Travis concluded.

“KFC does too,” Percy tried again, completely avoiding the comment about worms to avoid killing even more of his appetite. “Not to be fussy or anything, but there’s a reason why people got no dirt on KFC.”

“But McDonald’s cheaper, man!” Leo continued.

“Guys, do we have to vote by show of hands?” Charles asked like an annoyed dad would. “Can’t you just pick whatever?”

Leo talked over him like he had just remembered something. “Also isn’t stuff from Burger King just McDonald’s supplies leftovers?” Jason let out a huge sigh before Leo could talk again. “Isn’t that right?”

“I take that as a no,” Charles announced, ignoring Leo’s last comment for their own stomachs’ sake. “Who’s for KFC?”

Percy enthusiastically rose his hand, along with Connor.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Percy commented before Charles talked over him again after glancing at the rearview mirror. “We got two. Who’s for McDonald’s?”

Leo’s, Connor’s, and Jason’s rose their hands, causing Percy to grunt and fall back on his seat while pouting.

“That’s three,” Charles announced. “Guess we have a winner.”

“Connor voted two times!” Percy pointed out, finger pointed towards Connor’s seat.

“I just eat whatever, man. Burgers, chicken, onion rings…” the youngest boy casually replied. “… Ass.”

“Now _that_ ’s a skinny meal,” Leo commented.

“It burns calories,” Connor replied before Travis could start arguing again.

“I’ll just order a pizza.”

“Man, come on, why complain when you got a full bottle of jack for yourself?” Charles commented. “And _worms_? Seriously?”

“You didn’t pick a side either,” Travis mentioned, taking out his phone like he did when he would lose interest in a conversation.

“’Cause I’d rather eat something than talk about insect burgers, you brat,” Charles explained, with a hint of affection in his tone and turning the wheel to the right at a crossroad. “Suck it up and get a milkshake or chicken salad. We’re going to that one near Jason’s street.”

“You guys are some real party poopers,” Percy commented, to which Leo chuckled.

“Are we going with playground insults now?” Jason asked, and Percy made a decent enough job of swiftly messing up his short-trimmed hair before the blonde could reflexively grab his hand with a groan. “You’re the only reason why I cut my hair this short, Jackson.”

“I’m totally not complaining about that, pretty boy,” was Percy’s answer as he looked at Jason adjusting his glasses in the rearview mirror. He internally cringed at his own nickname, because it felt disturbingly right in his mouth.

“No one is,” Connor agreed, making Percy wink at him through the mirror.

Jason was patient enough not to answer.

They waited to arrive at the small corner fast food close to Jason’s house before all of them (apart from Connor, who just dismissed them with a “surprise me” and remained in his car to “make a call”, whatever that meant) could jump off the car to grab their orders. When waiting in line, Jason held the numbered bill while Percy and Leo were busy commenting on the group of girls sat at one of the window-side tables, a couple of them being definitely too loud not to make themselves known to the whole place. Just as they were noticing one’s windshield laugh, Charles picked them both up by their shoulders, moving them towards the counter where they happily collected their order; not after Leo could wink at the cashier, who just delivered him a death-stare before Jason could make him forcibly turn around and walk back towards the door.

Percy was too busy attacking a handful of his own fries with his mouth to pay attention to them.

On their way back to Jason's house, all of them had given up on resisting the wonderful and alluring smell coming from the huge paper bags in their laps, and mindlessly chew on whatever edible element they could fish with their hands until they all jumped out of the car one last time, Leo not completely able to stand up straight right away. He brushed Percy's helping hand off with a chuckle, calling himself an emancipated woman with no need for courtesy; Percy had to remind him of the too many times he had drunkenly fallen down any set of stairs for the other boy to actually pay attention and be able to direct him up the stone stairs towards the front door.

They didn’t even have the time to properly sit down before they were all attacking their own burger. Percy almost sat on top of Travis before the latter could push him away to make space for himself on the sofa; but as long as he had one of those crispy burgers in his mouth, he felt he honestly couldn’t care less. They were all soon laying back on their respective seats, hands in their bellies, and a satisfied expression on their faces. Well, all but Travis, who had actually ended up choosing a fucking salad with a large Sprite on the side.

“Getting drunk actually requires your stomach to be empty,” he explained.

“That's the worse excuse you could come up with,” Percy commented, massaging his belly. He still had space for a remaining couple of nuggets and ketchup.

“Let's see who’s sober at 3am.”

“No one,” Percy said, mouth full of chicken. He had to swallow to realize that, no, he never had any more space and was now clearly uncomfortably full. “I got weed.”

“Aw, shit,” Leo exclaimed after a burp left his mouth. “I should've kept something for later.”

“Munchies won't be a problem,” Jason spoke, gathering the stuff to throw out and reordering the coffee table. “I stacked up yesterday. Told my parents I needed money for some History and Economy summaries.”

Leo’s glistening eyes swiftly landed on Jason, and he blew the blonde boy a loud kiss (which Jason ignored) while following him with a mushy look on his face as he walked to the kitchen. “You'd be a perfect husband, Jassy.”

“I know.”

“You'd be a terrible wife,” Percy spoke as he eyed Leo to his left.

“You're in no position to say that, oldie,” Leo casually retorted. “You're not my husband anymore.”

“Wonder why,” Percy kept going as he got up and walked towards his own backpack near the door.

Crouching down and extracting the small plastic bag from its usual place, he gathered all the remaining items in his hands and walked back to place them on the table.

Charles had already turned on Jason's TV and PS4 console again, handing the joystick to Travis this time while Connor started to share the beers still sitting in the grocery bag. They all got one each, and Jason caught Percy's eye when he reached for the lighter on the table's edge and placed its plastic end under the jagged edge of the cap. He uncapped the bottle with a swift motion, and Percy had no idea why his eyes couldn’t just move away from his friend's arms.

“Oh, that's sexy,” came Leo's voice from the loveseat, making Percy finally blink away. “Do it again, blonde Superman.”

Jason delivered him a look very similar to the McDonald’s cashier’s, just more exhausted than manacing.

Percy finally got the chance to work on his joint-making, and avoided asking himself what the fuck had just happened. He just kept his mind from thinking that Leo was sometimes painfully right with his unsolicited comments and that it wouldn’t have been unpleasant to watch Jason uncap beer bottles all night long. But, since thoughts like that had always been too extremely uncomfortable for him to be aware of, he preferred to deny ever having them and bury them back deep down with his own unspeakable instincts.

What finally distracted him from the thought of Jason's arm muscles and the light, thin hair on his forearm was Travis’ yell at Charles’ laughter when he had won for the second time. Percy forgot about his own beer and about the joint for a couple of times before he could finish either one of them, but he blamed it on the alcohol in his system and the not-so-straight thoughts swirling in his head that he was trying hard to repress and push back down the clogged toilet his mind had become. Looking at the cigarette in front of him, though, he bid farewell to the wish of a peaceful night unspoiled by sexual tension, and put the spliff in between his lips as he grabbed the blue lighter in front of him.

Inhaling sharply but steadily, he tried to focus on the feeling of the smoke filling up his lungs and the intense taste lingering on his tongue as he stared at the TV screen, taking in the image of an Asian-dressed girl with high ponytails fighting against this big muscular man in a dirty tank top. He cursed at himself for lingering on the dude's chest muscles before trying to avert his eyes from that sight and concentrate on a more acceptable source of interest in the girl's boobs.

When the dude finally managed to take down the girl, Travis cheered, throwing one arm in the air with a fist.

“And that's what you fucking deserve,” he stated, directed to Charles, who was shaking his head, disappointed.

“That's not a win, that's what happens when you smash the buttons fast enough,” he commented calmly, already starting another match.

“Convenient for you to say that,” Travis commented as someone snatched the joint from Percy's hand.

“The heck…” Percy exclaimed, looking up to see Leo placing it between his lips and inhaling before he let the smoke travel out of his mouth with a sigh.

“I bet this is what heaven feels like,” Leo commented, going back to his seat with the roll-up still in between his fingers.

“You greedy fucker,” Percy commented, head already spinning and the room taking that familiar sway he was now used to. “At least pass it on.”

“I was going to,” Leo stated happily, and Percy laid back onto the sofa, hands in his pockets and observing the golden-skinned boy with suspicion. “I'm a principled man.”

“Tell that to all the commissioned essays you handed in,” Jason spoke as he stood up from his fake-leather white armchair, calmly walking the distance separating him from Leo's seat.

“You're pretty and all, Grace, but I'd prefer seeing how I'm thrashing Charlie here,” Travis commented as Jason passed in front of the TV on the way to the other side of the room.

“Thanks,” was Jason's dry answer.

“Someone's bitter,” Connor sang while still typing in his phone next to his brother.

“Mind your business, Connie-boy,” Travis replied, eyes glued to the screen.

Jason stopped on the side of Leo's chair, silently but politely asking him to pass him the cigarette, holding out a hand to take it in between his thumb and first finger. As he walked back to his seat, Travis didn’t say anything in particular, and Percy's head had stabilized. Now, voices and sounds were clear and slow, clean, all contoured by a feeling of being underwater. He felt his head follow Jason like he was a tennis ball in a Wimbledon match until the blonde sat back down on his seat.

Percy watched attentively as Jason's hand traveled to his lips, eyes thinning and brows relaxing behind the light frame of his glasses as he inhaled. Thin wisps of thick smoke were lazily traveling out of the cigarette and the sides of his mouth. He let his hand move the joint away from his face, keeping the vapors inside before slightly parting his pink lips and exhaling slowly. As a dense cloud formed in front of his face, the blue-eyed boy tilted his chin and laid back on the chair, spreading his legs and letting his muscular arms relax on both armrests.

His right hand was still sloppily holding Percy's joint.

 _Shit_ , was Percy's only thought just before he came back to himself, closing his parted mouth and pushing open his half-lidded eyes.

He liked dudes.

 _Shit_ , his mind repeated to itself.

“I wouldn’t mind dying right now,” Leo’s shrill voice managed to pull him off of his staring contest with the blue veins on Jason’s forearm.

Percy blinked a couple of times and reluctantly moved his gaze to the screen in front of him yet again.

“A dead body would be a pretty good buzzkill,” was Connor’s reply as he was finishing up his own beer.

As Percy’s mind came up with all the absurd possible headlines that could have come up after that night, he giggled at the thought of ‘Group of high teenage boys found throwing body of dead friend from Queensboro bridge at night trying to feign suicide’. “That would make a good ass movie.”

He saw a couple of faces turning towards him, looking like he had just started speaking Arabic. “What?”

He turned to Connor’s confused expression, realizing he had just skipped at least five minutes of conversation.

“The dead body,” he replied, slowly. He heard Leo laugh in the background.

“Dude, you’re still thinking about that?” Connor asked. “You fucking scared me.”

Percy didn’t want to get into that conversation. People seemed to forget how his mind worked when he always put so much effort into seeming “normal”.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that,” he casually replied. “And that’s mine.”

He took the joint from Connor’s hand muttering a “thank you” and observing it. Half of it was already gone. He put the cigarette in between his lips before he inhaled deeply again, Connor accepting the fact that he probably wasn’t going to smoke that night.

The TV was now playing something on MTV, which seemed extremely unnecessary to him. When he vocalized his thoughts, Charles had been the one ending up switching channels until they settled on a documentary about snakes on _National Geographic_ , using that as background images for the indie trap music coming from Jason’s portable speakers. Since it had darkened outside, the only sources of light were the changing images from the TV and the long, multicolored wall lights parallel to the ceiling. The smell of fried chicken and coke still lingered in the air, and the joint still sat in his hand as Leo initiated a monologue on how Wendy’s was actually probably better than any other fast food.

But Percy didn’t care about that. The extremely relaxed atmosphere could keep his insides warm, but it couldn’t do anything about the burning hole he still felt residing inside his chest. Something still wasn’t fitting, and Percy couldn’t understand if that something was him, or anything else.

The weed did get to his brain enough for his brain to finally move slowly and smoothly and for his body to let go of some tension in his shoulders and legs, but it was doing a bad job at keeping his deep unsatisfaction from resurfacing when Percy thought it had been pushed inside one of his compartmentalized lockers and he had thrown away the key. He was definitely not doing a good job of staying away from negative emotions, but he couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. Friends had always been the most important thing in his life, and not even that seemed to do anything to release him from the continuous feeling of being an outsider. ‘Alone’ would have been the word, even though his first instinct would have been to reject its meaning when applied to him. But, no, he couldn’t deny the obvious as he let the feeling spread like a tomato sauce stain on some white pants. The more Leo’s and Travis’ voices filled the room, the more they started feeling like background noise for his thoughts when he realized he was probably just feeling unseen.

Maybe that was what Connor had meant by becoming a gay butterfly. Coming out meant everyone could look at you and actually _see_ you. Your true colors. Like that song his mom would always sing when ironing his clothes.

“Oh…” he murmured out loud when he realized that maybe that was the reason for the rainbow on the gay pride flag.

“Dude, did you also just realize _Disney_ ’s just Walt Disney’s last name?” Connor suddenly asked beside him, turning to him wide-eyed and definitely drunk. Percy looked at the second beer in his hands and the empty Jack Daniel’s glass in front of him, taking him a moment to process what he had just been asked.

When he finally did, a confused frown appeared on his face. “What? No.”

“Oh, shit,” Connor replied, rapidly tapping on the bottle with his fingers. “You’re just tripping.”

“Kinda,” he admitted. “How did you come out?”

Connor turned towards him, raising his light eyebrows at Percy. “Uhm,” he hesitated. “Now I definitely want to know what you were tripping about.”

“Not related.”

Connor’s disappointed look quickly faded as he scanned around the room, where his brother and Leo were still head deep into a food debate. “If I tell you, you gotta promise you'll help me later with something,” he requested, lowering his voice.

Percy's high and drunk brain definitely didn’t want to deal with thinking about consequences. “Deal. Now shoot.”

“I’m not really out to my whole family yet. Everybody just kinda knew. Especially my mom,” he explained with a shrug. “Travis was actually the most surprised.”

“I thought you were closer than that.”

“Yeah well, he's damn good at denial, let's put it like that,” Connor continued before letting out a low chuckle. “But he did run into me getting it on with a guy from our Biology class when he came over for a group project.”

“Forreal?” Percy slurred, to which Connor laughed again, wiping a fake tear from under his eye.

“Yeah. Good ol' times,” he commented before continuing. “I just thought he knew until then. It was better like that, though. I don’t think he would've believed me if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes.”

Percy frowned slightly. “Why?”

“’Cause I don’t look gay enough to him,” Connor casually explained, taking another sip from his beer. “He's still getting used to the idea that you just have to like dick to be gay. And not be a girl.”

Percy didn't like that sentence. Also, that was the first time he was actually asking himself if he liked dick. It probably wasn't that literal, but he couldn’t help but wonder.

“How'd you know that?”

“I don’t know man, I don’t think you're a girl at this point…”

“I meant if you like dick.”

Percy didn’t like feeling himself cringing hard when asking that, either.

“I mean, you just…” Connor started before he was back at facing him with a curious gaze. His arched eyebrows slowly lifted in realization. “Oooh…”

“Who's talking about dick?” Leo suddenly asked, to which Percy's automatic reflex was to turn around with a guilty expression on his face.

“You're interested?” Connor asked back.

“We're not talking about dick,” Percy's mouth spoke in self-defense before he could even think.

“Right, we're talking about _liking_ dick,” Connor corrected, raising his first finger.

“You got something to confess, Jackie?” Travis questioned from one of the sofa's armrests.

Percy quickly panicked.

“It's not what it looks…” he started before he heard his phone chime loudly in his pocket.

The hopeful thought _it could be Nico_ flashed in his mind before he could decide to get a hold of his phone and unlock the screen.

“That's what they all say,” Leo commented in the background. Percy didn’t care enough to answer.

His stomach fluttered when Nico's name appeared on his notification bar, and he laid back on the gray cushions before hesitantly opening their chat.

_wanted to talk to you about something_

“Shit,” he whispered before going back to staring at the screen. Nico wasn't even online, but the anxiety filling up his chest didn’t care about that. It felt like he was directly in front of him, looking disappointed and angry before telling him he knew what he had been trying to hide all this time and that he didn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore.

“Woah, man, what was that about?” Connor asked, seeming more curious than concerned.

Percy locked his phone with a swift motion. He looked up at Connor, who raised an eyebrow at him.

“Nothin',” was the only thing Percy managed to come up with. That wasn't the best.

“Man, not to be stereotypical, but I fucking love gossip,” Connor lamented. “You can't just leave me hanging.”

“You really can't,” Travis added, like he knew what he was talking about.

“Why do you care?” Percy's wall came up again, just when his eyes met Jason's on the other side of the room.

He gestured to the phone with a questioning expression. Percy knew the blonde probably knew what was going on. He flattened his lips and shrugged hesitantly before he went back to focus on the phone in his hands.

“Dude, did you kill someone? Are you going to college?” Leo questioned out of the blue.

“How are those two even related…” Jason asked himself as Connor was throwing an arm around Percy's shoulders, getting closer to his face.

“Come on, man, I know how you feel,” he muttered, a bit drunkenly, looking at him with his bright blue eyes.

“It's seriously not like that…”

“You think anyone cares?” He pointed towards his brother sitting on the other side of the couch. “I know he looks threatening, dude. But trust me, just give him time. If you have something to say, just say it.”

“Man, are you scared?” Leo chimed again, throwing himself forward on the chair. “You ain't scared of me, are you? I could feel personally offended by that.”

“This is not about you, hype man, it's about our skater boy here,” Connor reprimanded in a higher tone. “I'm just tryna create a safe environment.”

“You're not gay or something, right Jackson?” Asked Travis relatively innocently, and Percy's blood froze up the second he heard the g-word.

“I'm fucking not!” Percy blurted out, turning towards the other boy while Connor let out an exasperated sigh. “And even if I was, would you have a fucking problem with that, or what?”

“Woah, dude, I literally just asked…”

“Let me tell you you’ve got the worst kind of questions, bro,” Connor commented, removing his hand from Percy's shoulder and getting up from his seat.

“And you’re honestly just an asshole sometimes, dude,” Charles spoke, to which Travis looked hurt, to say the least. “Nothing personal.”

“ _We_ 're taking a break now,” Connor spoke as he patted his brother's shoulder, commanding him to walk towards the glass doors to the backyard. “Excuse us.”

Travis seemed to silently comply with that request, throwing one last glance towards Jason and Leo and being met with their silent stares before he was off being dragged away by his younger brother.

Once they closed the exit to the outside, Percy ran a hand through his hair and squeezed them tight to focus on anything else apart from Travis' last comment and how familiar, and now hurtful, it sounded to him. And it didn’t sound familiar because he had experienced it on himself specifically; but it did sound like that was the simple vocalization of what most people would think when it came to people like him. And that was why he refused to call himself something remotely similar to the g-word. That was why waking up from any kind of romantic dream (or daydream) involving Nico still felt like it had to be kept as his dirty little secret to everyone knowing him. Including the person concerned.

And he was probably squeezing his hair a bit too tight, because it was starting to hurt, but he couldn't raise his head and face anybody in the room since it was so evident they knew. Percy knew they did, and it was the worst feeling. He wasn't even gay, for Christ's sake. He just liked Nico, and that was all that there was. A boy-crush he bet everybody went through, sooner or later in life.

“Bro,” He felt the cushion dip where Connor had been, and the smell of what he knew was Leo's cologne reached his nostrils. “You don’t have to tell if you don’t want to, but I swear you'll feel way better.”

He felt his friend's arm lay around his shoulders, but it did little to calm down his brain from coming up with all the worst-case scenarios.

“I mean, I still really wanna know, though…”

“Leo,” Jason admonished him.

“ _Desculpa_ ,” Leo rushed to reply.

Percy heard Jason's chair creak as he leaned forward, resting on his knees.

“Percy, I think Connor's right,” the blonde spoke, and Percy’s grip on his locks loosened. He breathed deeply. “Nobody truly cares here. I told you I don't have reasons to care who you’re crushing on, unless it's someone I like. The same goes for them, too.”

“I only care for the shock factor,” Leo commented, earning another admonition from Jason. “As in nobody would've ever guessed, man! We all know you like girls, that's not even a question. Remember Patty in sixth grade?”

“You mean Crappy Patty?” Percy questioned, a small smile appearing on his lips.

“Yeah, man! Ponytails and everything,” Leo continued, slurring and with a dismissive gesture of his hand. “You’d let her step on your face with her glitter high-heel shoes just to touch one of her boobs.”

“That really was something,” Charles continued, making Leo squeeze Percy’s shoulder tightly before giving him a shake.

“But it's not like we were expecting you to be like that.”

Percy glanced at him. “You mean desperate?”

“Nah, I mean straight as a pole,” Leo continued.

“I think he just means that it's no big deal who you crush on ‘cause we’ve got no high expectations on that,” Charles continued, calmly. “We know you got a weird taste, son.”

“Apart from wise girl Anne,” Leo corrected, after which Percy laid back on the sofa again. “She's got all the right stuff.”

“She's really not for you,” Percy warned, slightly pushing his elbow in between Leo's ribs. “Stick to McDonald’s girls.”

“Like there's something wrong with that,” Leo muttered, and Jason cleared his voice.

Percy’s mind went back to their previous topic with an uncomfortable twist.

“Anyway, if you're not gonna tell them, that's fine,” Jason spoke as he laid back on his chair, too. “Just know that if you do, nobody's going to mind.”

“Right,” Charles agreed, nodding slightly.

Percy shifted uncomfortably on his seat, Leo's arm still lying forgotten in his shoulder and his left knee touching his right one. Crossing his arms and hugging himself, he glanced towards Jason cleaning his glasses while slouched on his chair.

The realization from before decided to pop up in his mind again, pushing insistently at his consciousness. He liked dudes, he had told himself. He wished it could just be Nico, but if he could really be honest with himself, he knew it had never been just him. Jason was one direct proof of that.

He thought back at Connor and his comment about denial, and felt like an idiot for feeding himself so many lies throughout the years. There was no heterosexual explanation for the times in which he would have been glad if Jason would have asked him to give him a blowjob. And he wasn't even the first; like that Dutch exchange student at his swimming practice? How the hell did he miss all the times he caught himself staring at his abs and shoulders basically daydreaming about licking them dry with his tongue?

He dragged a hand down his face to shake away those images, and luckily managed before they could travel further down.

So, Nico may have not been the first. But he caught that moment of clarity to recognize that Nico had been the only guy for which he had actually had the chance to develop something more. Something more wholesome and rounded; more complete and less superficial. Because he liked him. He had the time to know him before he could take a look at him, and he crushed on him hard even before knowing his face.

That's why it hurt so much to see him slipping away.

“I guess…” Percy started mindlessly. “I’m crushing on this guy.”

“So you're bi?” Leo asked, a bit too excitedly.

Percy scowled. “I don't know,” he lied.

He evidently was. He just didn’t want to admit it.

“He's got time to figure that out,” Jason spoke, and Percy relaxed.

“Fair enough. Who the hell's this guy though, man?” Leo questioned, eyes almost glistening. “Must be fucking handsome.”

“He's not handsome,” Percy corrected, before leaving himself puzzled by his own comment.

“Must be, if you're thirsting on him.”

“Remember Crappy Patty,” Charles reminded them in a serious tone.

“Well, considering you've finally dumped Annabeth over him,” Jason continued. “Someone should thank him.”

“I'll thank him ‘cause he made her a free bird,” Leo agreed dreamily, and Percy delivered a stronger nudge on his ribs.

“He doesn't like me anyway,” Percy commented, holding his phone in his hand from inside his hoodie's pocket.

“Bullshit,” came Connor's voice from the windows. Travis walked behind him towards the sofa. Percy's shoulders tensed yet again. “Are we talking about his crush?”

“Yeah,” replied Leo before Charles, Percy, and Jason turned towards him with a disappointed look. The boy quickly realized, holding a hand over his mouth. He removed to speak again. “I mean no.”

“Geez, relax,” Travis spoke, sitting slouched on the spot which had been Leo's. “No problem with that. Just didn’t expect it coming from Percy.”

“You're not the only one,” muttered Percy, his right leg bouncing lazily.

“So, back to your bullshit,” Connor started, sitting on the coffee table, facing him, and laying on his knees with a teasing smirk. “Why'd you say he doesn't like you?”

“I call bullshit, too,” said Leo, turning towards him on the sofa. “You're a great-looking man, not gonna lie. I recognize handsome when I see it.”

“I know guys who'd be all over you, dude,” Connor continued.

Percy shook his head. “He's just cold,” he shrugged slightly, lowering his head and trying to concentrate on the soft music in the background. “We saw each other a couple times, though, and he's not touchy at all. So I can't really tell, y'know?”

“Some people are just chilly,” Connor continued. “Do you talk?”

“He's kinda ignoring me lately,” Percy said after a pause, playing with his hoodie's strings. “He's got some other guy on the side. Name's Will or something.”

“Who fucking cares, man,” Travis chimed. Surprised, Percy looked at him. “He's testing you. He probably wanna see if you really like him or not. That's why he's even telling you.”

“That's not how it goes most of the time,” Jason corrected dryly. “It depends if he ever mentioned this guy to you or not.”

Percy's mind was not in the state of thinking back to every time Nico had mentioned Will in his presence. He did try, though, with effort.

“I don't know, man,” he replied. “Probably like, twice?”

“He's fucking playing, I'm telling ya,” Travis commented again.

“I wouldn't be so sure, T,” Connor started before Travis could continue.

“Listen here, Jackie, it's real simple with us guys,” he started, looking directly at Percy. He counted on his fingers. “We either want a chick, or we don’t. No maybes or ifs. If we want it and we're not shy, we take it. If we're shy, we find ways to keep her hooked until we find out if she’s into us,” he continued, and Percy let him. “One of those ways is keeping away dudes she might like.”

“What're you saying, man?” Charles asked.

“Does he get jealous?” Connor and Travis asked at the same time, and Percy felt taken aback.

“I don’t know, man, I never noticed,” Percy spoke before actually starting to think.

“Travis kinda has a point,” Jason said, making Percy raise his gaze towards him. “Didn't it bother him that you had a girlfriend?”

He had never even mentioned Annabeth to Nico; now he wished he had.

Percy was pretty sure he had never considered talking about her once, so he had never even mentioned the fact that he liked girls. He had always seemed to avoid the topic, even when he had been with her. Nico had to have started acting coldly from around the time Percy had started playing with Hazel. The fact that Nico could have been jealous of her, though, just didn’t sit right with him; not that it wouldn't make any sense, because it definitely did. But since it had been Nico who had invited her to be on their team, it felt weird thinking about Nico as someone who could sabotage himself like that without giving it a second thought. Would have Nico been so sure Percy liked him to the point of bringing Hazel in without a doubt that Percy would accidentally flirt with her? And, also, Percy didn’t even flirt with her at all. From his point of view, he was just being his usual, nice self.

Thinking back at the day in which he had met Hazel, he remembered realizing that Nico hadn’t contacted him the whole day before. Sure, Percy had been with Annabeth, so he couldn’t really reply or pay attention to his messages anyway, but that _did_ strike him as strange. The last tension- and ice-free conversation with Nico had strangely been the one in which the guy had announced Hazel would have been on their team, and he had seemed a bit off right at the end…

His eyes widened. “Fuck,” he cursed, looking at an indefinite point in front of him; his jaw dropped. He covered his forehead with his right hand and looked up towards the white ceiling in the dim lights, throwing his head back on the edge of the sofa. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“Is that a yes?” Leo questioned, confused.

“I fucking told him I was going on a _date_ ,” he continued, holding his hair back with his hand. He felt so fucking stupid.

He _was_ fucking stupid. Two functioning brain cells were probably all that he had left and definitely had to stop using drugs.

“I’m so fucking stupid,” he vocalized once more before Jason could start speaking again.

“So, we found out why he’s ignoring you,” the blonde stated. “Can’t believe Travis was on the right track.”

“I’m _always_ on the right,” Travis announced with a smug smile on his face; which slightly faded when he met Connor’s annoyed expression. “… Track.”

“So, wait, you told him you were dating, and he got all jelly and cold?” Leo questioned him. “And now he pretends he’s all over this other guy ‘cause he’s playing hard to get?”

Percy shook his head decisively. “He’s not that kind of guy, man,” he said confidently.

It just couldn’t be possible. That just wasn’t his Nico.

“I’m tellin’ you he is,” Travis chimed, before Charles interrupted him.

“Sounds like he probably just thinks you’re not into him,” he explained, muscular arms crossed on his chest. “He’s playing it safe.”

That did sound more like something Nico would do. “You say?”

“Guy knows you’re into boys too?” The black-haired guy asked him, and Percy felt even more like an idiot when thinking about the answer.

“Maybe not,” he muttered, playing with his strings yet again while bouncing both his legs up and down. He bit his lip. “Probably should’ve told him.”

“Sounds pretty obvious to me,” Connor agreed, shrugging. “That’s the next thing you’ll do, then.”

Percy thought back to their conversation. And Nico’s message sitting quietly in their chat, unanswered. A new rush of adrenaline pumped through his veins as he extracted it from his pocket before he could forget again. “Well, can’t do that now.”

“Is this him?” Leo questioned, his face getting closer to Percy’s yet again. Before Percy could answer, Leo just went silent. “Ohhh…”

“Yeah,” Percy said unenthusiastically, staring at the screen. Nico wasn’t online. That would give him time, but he still had no idea what to do and his mind wasn’t in the right place to think about something remotely smart to say. “This is a problem, I guess.”

“Did he write you?” Jason asked, after which Connor got closer to see the screen. He managed to read Nico’s text from his upside-down perspective in front of Percy’s face, tickling his face with his soft curls.

“Doesn’t sound too good,” he commented after a moment.

Soon, they were all getting close to read the screen, each of them humming thoughtfully.

“What’re you gonna do now?” Leo asked from beside him.

Percy kept on staring at his phone’s screen for a few moments until he realized his brain had as much potential at that moment as a plain blackboard. Giving in to the frustration, he started typing.

_Shoot._

He hit send before Leo could stop him.

“You could’ve at least thought about that!” The curly-haired boy exclaimed, probably being more enthusiastic than he should have been.

“You’re reading too much into it,” Travis mentioned from sitting back on the armrest of the sofa, just beside Charles. “You’ve gotta be clear.”

Percy didn’t have the patience to think about anything consequence. He just had enough common sense to lock his phone as soon as Nico’s status changed to online.

Throwing his phone on his legs and trying to snap out of the growing sense of dread he was feeling, he ran both his hands on his face and sighed.

“What now?” He asked Connor in front of him.

His clever blue eyes met his, and he shrugged while adjusting himself on the coffee table. “Now we wait,” he announced, glancing around to the others and solemnly raising the Jack Daniel’s still half-full bottle from the floor. “Who’s up for another shot?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi it's me from 11am.
> 
> just want to throw in here that I'll have a whole month of freedom from anything and everything and that I hope this'll make the updates faster. 
> 
> also uh I made a...playlist...?? for this ff because I'm clearly in too deep with this. I'll just......leave it in the first chapter's summary when I'm done reordering it
> 
> this is embarrassing


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why is it always 4am when I publish stuff, I don't get it. guess I'll see you tomorrow morning for anything I'll have to say about this, but I hope you'll enjoy it in the meantime. thank you for every hit/kudos/comment, I really don't say that enough

After some minutes spent staring at his phone, feeling his guts knotting with impatience, it was Leo who finally noticed Percy’s nervous frown and managed to shake him out of his state. Starting from Connor, they all sipped on the bottle of Jack before passing it on during the wait.

Nobody dared to get up from their seat with Percy on the center cushion of the big sofa. Apart from Travis, who excused himself to take a leak right before Percy’s phone chimed loudly on his lap. Putting his good reflexes to good use, he instantly grabbed it to unlock it before he could stare at Nico’s reply.

“What’s it say?” Spoke Charles from beside Percy, arms crossed on his chest.

Despite his heart having just skipped a beat and his conscience still floating in the mixture of weed and alcohol in his system, Percy attempted at reading the text out loud.

“It says ‘it’ll probably sound really random’…” he started, stupidly squinting his eyes and moving the screen closer to his face. Like that could somehow help him. “… ‘but I’m sorry if it felt like I was ignoring you lately, or something’.”

He ignored the drop in his stomach as soon as he finished reading.

He left the chat open and tried to snap out of the puzzling, mixed feelings inside by meeting Connor’s thoughtful gaze in front of him.

“What’d you wanna write?” Connor asked.

Percy replied with a pathetic shrug before glancing at his keyboard again, hesitant to write anything. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted, nervously bouncing both his legs. “How do you answer…”

“He’s still writing,” Leo chimed from his right, catching Percy’s wrist to stop him from typing. “Let’s hear the guy first.”

“And if he _really_ is sorry,” Jason added from the side, handing the bottle to Connor.

“Let’s assume the guy has the best intentions,” Connor spoke, taking a sip from the bottle and swallowing hard, squinting his eyes. “We’ve already got a hint he likes you, skater boy.”

“A pretty big hint, too,” the blonde commented once more from his armchair, looking for another playlist to play on his phone.

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Percy muttered, crossing one arm around his chest while still holding up the phone in front of his face.

Some tension-filled moments later, another couple of messages chimed in the chat.

“‘I tend to do that sometimes’,” Percy read with the most neutral tone he could manage. “… ‘This doesn’t mean I don’t wanna talk to you’.”

Butterflies happily rose in his chest as he finished reciting the texts.

“That’s promising,” Charles commented, as Travis got out of the bathroom and Percy saw him walk back to his spot out the corner of his eye.

The butterflies were soon being joined by one small, uncomfortable knot in his throat. Despite what he had just written, Percy couldn’t help but wonder: was there any criterion with which Nico tended to just pretend people didn’t exist at times? Did it mean that Percy was exactly like all the others, if not worse, considering Nico had spent his time talking with that Will handsome-guy instead of him? Was there any chance those messages were actually just what Hazel had forced him to say, and not what Nico really meant?

Was he even sorry at all?

“So the guy finally spoke?” The wavy-haired boy spoke as he sat down on the sofa’s armrest with a thud.

“He says he’s sorry for ignoring him and that he still wants to talk,” Connor briefly explained, crossing his legs on the coffee table. “Now we just gotta start flirting.”

Percy’s nerves instantly tensed up at the word “flirting”.

“You do that now and it’s a guaranteed strike-out,” Travis reprimanded. “Make him work for it.”

“Letting people know you’re single is usually the first step,” Jason chimed in, putting his phone back on the coffee table, unlocked. “And that you go both ways.”

“Guys, you’re forgetting the conversation topic here,” Connor noted, briefly glancing at the others. “This is supposed to be a reconciliation moment.”

“We wanna get rid of the third guy first, and then we’ll flirt,” Travis spoke.

Percy, instead, kept on following the back-and-forth conversation with his eyes, letting the point of the discussion fade from his mind. “Why can’t I just say that it’s okay?” He questioned, lost.

“’Cause it’s not, Jackie,” Travis explained, seeming annoyed Percy even asked. “He’s got to know you’re feeling bad.”

“Because…?”

“’Cause you want him to know you care whether he talks to you or not,” Connor continued his brother’s sentence, looking straight at Percy.

He frowned. “And how do you do that?”

Connor let out an exasperated sigh before Leo finally spoke again. “That’s easy-peasy,” the curly-haired boy declared, extending a hand towards Percy with a confident smirk. “Lemme handle it, oldie.”

“Like hell _you_ ’re doing it, nacho-boy,” Travis immediately retorted, extending his hand towards Percy from his spot. “I wouldn’t trust you with a slice of pizza.”

Percy glanced puzzled at their hands before Charles could take both their wrists and lead them back to the respective owners. “Percy’s doing it. You stay out of it.”

“He is a bit out of it, though, Charles,” Jason shrugged lightly, hands crossed on his lap. “Think about it.”

“See?” Travis insisted, pointing towards the blonde boy. Charles looked him up and down before the blue-eyed boy dramatically rolled his eyes and let out a snort. “I’m still sober, man, I can do it. That’s not the first chick I talk with.”

“That’s the issue, T. Some of that stuff doesn’t work with guys,” Connor reminded him before Percy could glance back at his screen, zoning out of that whole exchange. “And you're really not _that_ sober.”

When he realized five minutes had passed without him actively trying to reply, he panicked. Without bothering to listen to the ongoing conversation around him, he started typing to at least hope Nico wouldn’t question what was taking him that long because, somehow, the thought of Nico noticing Percy suspiciously struggling with a simple reply felt too embarrassing to bear.

He re-read what he wrote in a rush, forgetting he should have done that before hitting send to avoid typos. _It’s actually fine if u don’t wanna talk w me_

 _I get it_. He added in an attempt to make Nico feel less guilty; it didn’t matter he had ignored him for days.

There had to be a reason out of Nico’s control. It was actually Percy who had completely fucked up in the first place, as he always did.

“Did you just reply?” Leo turned to him, dumbfounded, as if Percy had personally insulted him. “Man, why’d you do that?!”

“I was leaving him on read, dude!” Percy rushed to explain before running both his hands down his face in frustration.

“What’d you reply?” Charles patiently asked.

Percy covered his face yet again, ignoring the question. “I’m on fucking edge, man,” he muttered, to no one in particular. He let out a heavy sigh, letting his phone be lifted from his lap. “I shouldn’t have smoked. He’s gonna know and he’s gonna hate me.”

“What’s the password?” Connor asked as Leo started massaging Percy’s shoulder.

“Dude, it’s alright! Let your brothers do the work. We know you’ve got no experience.”

“I do _have_ experience!” Percy exclaimed, finally uncovering his face and turning towards Leo. The other gave him a knowing look. “I’m not some fucking thirteen-year-old.”

“You are if you write ‘you’ like that,” Connor commented.

Percy jerked back into position, seeing the younger boy scroll through his phone. “Who the hell gave you…”

“Jassy,” Travis interrupted him, pointing towards Jason.

Percy glanced at his best friend with a baffled look before the other could shrug apologetically. “It’s an important cause.”

“So much for being a principled man, you jerk,” Percy muttered, crossing his arms and laying back on his seat, pouting.

His eyes focused on the glowing screen in Connor’s hands when the wavy-haired boy started talking. “It could’ve been worse,” he concluded. “Now he’s probably feeling bad.”

“That’s great,” Travis commented, his leg dangling from the side of the armrest. “You got him hooked now.”

“Depends if he actually cares or not,” Charles corrected, serious. “If he does, you can start the conversation about being single.”

“He’s writing,” Connor notified them as his brother spoke again. “Will you let me do it now, you assholes?”

“If you don’t trust Leo, I definitely don’t trust _you_ with that,” Jason interjected.

Travis started objecting again, but Percy’s focus didn’t shift from Connor’s expression. Finally seeing the boy’s eyes scanning the screen, he leaned towards him with a hopeful expression. “What’d he say?”

“He said, ‘you think I’d have problems telling you if that were the case?’,” Connor recited, raising his eyebrows. He let out a snort. “Guy needs to chill, that’s for sure.”

“That’s just how he is,” Percy mumbled, trying to grab hold of his phone once again. His hand aimlessly grasped the air as the other laid backward, keeping the phone out of Percy’s reach, making him frown.

“Still writing,” Connor briefly explained before Travis chimed in again, smirking and pinching Percy’s cheek. “You’re for the cold type, right Jackie?”

Refusing to slap his hand away, Percy glared at him instead.

“So?” Leo asked excitedly, mimicking Percy’s posture with his elbows on his knees.

Connor took a moment to read the second message. Percy’s legs had never been that restless. “Says ‘you got nothing to do with it, just a bad period overall’,” he read.

Percy slowly breathed out, secretly more than relieved.

“Dude didn’t say nothing about the ‘bad period’ though,” Travis grumbled condescendingly, crossing his arms. “That’s a fucking excuse.”

“Not necessarily,” Charles objected, shrugging lightly and scratching his chin. “Ask him why he didn’t tell. Maybe he didn’t wanna worry you or something.”

Connor nodded approvingly as he typed.

“Yeah, so what, he just walked out the picture hoping no one would ask questions?” Travis asked sardonically. “That’s an idiot move.”

“Watch your mouth, man,” Percy interjected, side-eyeing Travis. “He’s not stupid. I go with Charles’ explanation.”

“Of course you’d go with that,” Travis grumbled, turning away from him.

“You’ll never know if you don’t ask,” Jason pointed out, getting up from his armchair, directed towards the kitchen.

Leo raised a finger towards Connor. “But be sweet about it, dude. He needs to know you care.”

“This is sweet enough,” Connor announced before reading the message out loud, mindlessly playing with a lock of his own hair. “‘Is there a reason why you didn’t tell me?’”

“You sound like a goddamn novelist,” Travis complained, earning no reaction from his brother.

“Right, can I have _my_ phone back now?” Percy questioned with urgency, looking at Connor expectantly.

In reality, he didn’t mind someone else doing the work for him with his mind being already overloaded.

Connor diverted his eyes off the screen, smiling slyly. “Not until he replies,” he replied.

Percy scoffed, defeated, laying back down on the cushions while nervously playing with the strings of his hoodie.

He was repeating to himself that there would have been no way for Nico to notice he wasn’t actually writing the messages. He didn’t know him that well to recognize his own texting style, he thought. All because he was painfully aware of the consequences of Nico finding out not including the situation ever getting better.

A few moments later, Jason emerged from the kitchen with two extra-large bags of Doritos and three full cans of Pringles. Travis grabbed the cheese-flavored Doritos from under Jason’s arm, ripping it open and munching on a handful of chips like his life depended on it while Leo got the paprika Pringles can and did the same.

Percy wasn’t hungry, though. He was still questioning himself on the option of listening to his own mind instead of what the others were telling him. On the one hand, he knew Travis always seemed to look for the worst in people; it was only natural he would look at Nico’s way of approaching relationships with suspicion. But, Percy knew, the younger boy just had trouble showing any kind of emotion. It had shown when he had ignored his anxiety to the point of a panic attack, and in how he tried to hide his nervousness before talking with Tyson the first time Percy had introduced them. It also showed in his avoidance of talking about his issues, and how he had tried to divert the topic multiple times before Percy had finally succeeded in making him confess what his issues were. And, finally, it also showed in the way he tried covering up his hurt when Percy had made that comment about Nico’s limitations, back when Percy was trying to childishly persuade him into coming to New York; the younger boy hadn’t even tried to confront him. After a few minutes of reflection, he came back to Percy completely devoid of hurt and any kind of emotion, which still weirdly unsettled him.

It wasn’t that Percy didn’t want to accept the possibility that Nico might be lying: he knew that wasn’t true, since Nico had no reason to straight-up lie to him. He did omit information; a lot of it, at times. But lying was not his style.

Charles had been right. Nico was probably just scared of what Percy would have thought if he had just started telling him about his problems; Percy telling him he was going on a date had broken something in their relationship. He didn’t want to see that as jealousy, or something similar. The “bad period” Nico talked about probably didn’t even have to do with him directly, as he had already made that clear in his last texts.

Percy still wanted to know why Nico had stopped talking to him from the time he had mentioned the date, though. He needed more information to finally convince himself that Nico had no intention of fooling him into something that wasn’t true.

What had he been afraid of, exactly?

“There he is,” Connor mumbled, his mouth full of chips. He grabbed Percy’s unlocked phone with his clean hand (thankfully) and scanned the chat, raising his eyebrows.

“What?” Percy questioned, leaning forward again.

Connor swallowed before talking again. “He says, ‘I don’t really like talking about myself that much. I prefer leaving people out of my own issues’,” he raised a finger. “Here comes the best part: ‘even though you may be already familiar with them’,” he concluded, looking at Percy with a smug smirk plastered on his lips.

“That’s sweet, man!” Leo patted Percy on the shoulder, squeezing it. Percy turned to him, puzzled, as Leo stared back wide-eyed. “He’s saying you _know_ him! That’s a huge green light.”

“I told you he was probably just worried about troubling you or something,” Charles repeated matter-of-factly. “At least he cares.”

Some cheesy feeling blossomed in his chest as he slowly processed those words, heart starting to beat again. Maybe Nico did care about him. That couldn’t be definitive proof but could at least be considered a major hint.

He kept the corners of his mouth from turning upwards as he gazed towards Connor again. “What now?”

“Could still be talking bullshit,” Travis insisted as he extracted his phone from his pocket, mindlessly scrolling through.

“Use that to say what you wanna say,” Jason suggested, hands deep into his Doritos bag, eyes mindlessly scanning the TV screen. It was still projecting that documentary about snakes in South America. “You’re not going anywhere until you mention you’re single.”

“Jass’s right, oldie,” Leo agreed, licking the small crumbs off his fingers. “He needs to feel safe,” he extended a hand towards Connor, raising his eyebrows. “Which so happens to be my thing.”

“Nuh-uh short guy,” Connor swiftly snatched Percy’s phone far away from Leo’s reach. “Doesn’t work like that.”

Leo grunted in frustration before he was up on his feet, Pringles can resting under his arm. “Come on! You know I’m the most competent therapist here, man,” he pleaded before Percy took a hold of his shirt and yanked it backward, making him fall back on the sofa with a snort.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, man,” Percy explained to Leo’s pouting face before he could turn towards Connor again. “It’s that you’re not that…”

“The fuck,” Connor stuttered, looking at his empty right hand where Percy’s phone should have been.

They all turned to see Leo with it in his hand, gently adjusting his position on the sofa’s cushions beside Percy, a satisfied smirk on his delicate features. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassured them as he started typing. “Papa Leo’s got this.”

“Oh, there’s no way, dude,” Percy muttered before he finally took hold of his phone, trying to yank it away from the other’s hands before Charles tried to stop him. “Gimme that, man.”

Leo’s eyes grew wide when he saw Percy’s thumb slip down on the screen. “No, don’t…” he tried, but Percy had already won the fight. He adjusted on his seat as Leo’s panicked stare and Charles’ hesitant stutter led him to glance at the screen.

The single, brief key smash slipped out from the keyboard stared back at him and his blood went cold.

“Shit,” Travis snickered in a whisper, while Connor facepalmed himself, sighing.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Percy cursed under his breath, rushing to delete it and hoping that acting fast enough wouldn’t have given Nico the time to read it with all his might.

“Okay, sorry ‘bout that. But lemme do it, man, when did I ever let you down?” Leo shook him by his shoulder after Percy ran a hand through his hair, still scared shitless. “I’mma just be here, and you can read first. You know I’m good at this!”

“Just let him do it, Percy,” Jason’s voice spoke from the side, unbothered. “He won’t send until you say so.”

Percy’s eyes bounced back and forth between Leo’s hopeful face and Jason’s impassive look.

People had repeatedly told him he was bad at flirting; that much was true, even though he had no idea why. He guessed it could have to do with him being bad at expressing his feelings. On that, probably anyone in that room could have done a better job than him.

And, in all honesty, Leo made no exception. On the contrary, he could seem pressing and a piece of work at times, but Percy could still act as a filter. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Leo was probably fitting for the job.

He snorted, frustrated, before he reluctantly handed back the phone to Leo’s eager hands. The boy grinned before he was off typing again beside him. “Thanks, man. Won’t let you down.”

“Hope not,” Percy mumbled, looking at Leo’s thumbs running fast over the keyboard.

It took him a few seconds to send the first message. _Don’t worry about it. I was having issues too with a breakup and stuff, so I guess this wasn’t the best time for both of us_

Percy grunted. “Fine, if you really had to let it out like that…” he started, being interrupted by Leo raising his finger to shut him up. “Not finished,” Leo sang, resuming typing.

The second message, he sent before Percy could have the possibility to object at its excessively cheesy tone. _Really sweet of you to worry about me anyway :-)_

“Did you _really_ have to do that?” Percy complained. “I didn’t approve of that!”

“Man, lemme handle this. You clearly have no idea how to flirt.”

“That’s not flirting!”

“How do you usually flirt, skater boy?” Connor chimed in, his mouth full of chips.

“The fact that you don’t consider _that_ flirting means you can’t do this by yourself,” Leo insisted, dismissing Percy with a gesture of the hand before he could retort.

Percy grunted again, burying his hands beneath his arms and avoiding staring at the phone.

Nico replied some moments later.

_Oh, sorry about that. How’s that now?_

A small, satisfied smile appeared on the side of Leo’s mouth before he started typing away.

“What?” Percy questioned him, puzzled. “You’re not even gonna question me? He just asked how I am.”

“You know, directing conversation is a form of art,” Leo replied, making Travis stick his head out to glance at the screen. “Imagine you’re catching a wild rabbit.”

Percy tried finding meaning in those words. He gave up after a few moments. “What?”

“Leo, keep it simple,” Charles admonished him, making Leo snort. “If you say you’re sad and all, he’s gonna think he’s got no chance with you ‘cause you got other stuff on your mind. If you play it cool, like this,” Leo let him read the message he just sent. _It’s alright now, got other stuff to think about. Don’t worry_. “You’re leaving it open. You’re luring him in. Get it?”

Percy still hadn’t liked the rabbit analogy. “Man, what am I, fucking fishing?”

“You kind of are, Jackie,” Travis replied from his side, which made it necessary for Percy to remind him he actually liked Nico and wasn’t just trying to get with him on a whim. Leo kept on with the conversation, unbothered, making small talk until Nico questioned him about the start of the tournament, after which Percy was allowed to have agency on his phone yet again.

“Man, put in more effort!” Leo scolded him as Percy sent the first text. “That’s sandpaper-level dry.”

“Tell him you missed him,” Connor suggested, wiping his hands on his pants. Percy glanced at him, stunned and wide-eyed. The other blinked back at him, a knowing smile forming on his face. “What, you didn’t?”

“No, it’s not…” Percy tried, averting his gaze and looking down at his phone again. Tight-lipped and biting the inside of his cheek, he let out a small cough. “Fine,” he muttered, resigned, as he wrote.

He sent the message after a moment. _Missed gaming with you_.

He cringed inside, hard, looking at Leo who just gestured him to go on. Percy threw him an eye-roll before reluctantly sending another message. _I mean, Hazel’s good, but I kinda trust you more_

Leo patted him on the shoulder for comfort before Nico replied.

_you should trust her as well considering she’s on the team too_

The others just hummed, but no one tried to grab his phone, which was an improvement. They were all busy eating their leftovers still on the table, so Percy finally had the time to think about how to drive the conversation back to Nico and away from himself. _I just know you better than I know her_.

He sucked in a breath as he wrote the second message. _At least we also work well together in person_

_we work well together cause I forced you to practice with me at least 5 days a week_

It took a moment for Percy to read it. When he managed, a corner of his mouth turned up.

“Aw, he’s smiling,” Connor sang, making Percy’s face rapidly fall back to its neutral expression.

“You’re such a pussy, Jackie,” Travis teased, slightly bumping his shoulder.

“Mind your business,” Percy muttered as he wrote the next message. _Hey don’t think it was all you._

Leo stopped him from sending. “Again?” Said Percy, sighing. “I’m doing fine!”

“You’d do better with pet names,” Leo stated, pointing to his head. He winked. “Trust me on that.”

Percy chuckled at the thought. “He’s definitely not the type for pet names, man,” he snickered, shaking his head.

“Everyone’s for pet names, dude. There’s no way.”

“I never call him anything!”

“Then stick with ‘babe’ or something!”

“Okay, that’s a bit too forward, dude,” Connor stated, cutting Leo off. “But Leo’s right, lover boy. Make it intimate.”

Percy stared at the screen and ran a hand through his hair out of nervousness. “Dude, why should I do this?”

“See, this is what I mean when I tell you he doesn’t know how to hit on people,” Leo complained, making Percy sigh loudly before typing. _I did my part too, ghost boy_.

He waited impatiently, chin resting on his hand.

_yeah, sure._

_stop calling me that._

Percy grunted. “I told you!” he lamented, mindlessly throwing his phone back to Leo, who clicked his tongue and snickered. “You just gotta read between the lines.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Means making sure he _really_ doesn’t like it,” he explained as he wrote another message. _So you’re not at all for pet names?_ “I bet if he would’ve liked you to stop, he would’ve made you.”

“That’s a weird thought,” Charles commented, to which Percy shrugged in approval, watching him. Leo was about to retaliate when another message popped up in the chat.

 _not when you say them ironically_.

Percy stared, frowning.

Leo smirked at him, raising an eyebrow. “See? Papa Leo’s always right.”

“I can’t believe this,” Charles muttered, chuckling lowly.

Percy didn’t really feel like saying complaining at all. He was too busy processing the thought of Nico liking pet names, and that what Percy had always interpreted as contempt had actually been a reaction to Percy pretend-teasing him.

The pieces started coming together when Leo wrote the next message. _Who told you I’m being sarcastic?_

Nico replied a few moments later. _cut the bullshit man, I’m serious_.

Leo chuckled and kept on writing, Percy’s eyes fixed on the keyboard. _It just comes naturally. Won’t mention it anymore if you don’t like it tho_.

Percy waited for his reply wished for everything but a negative answer. He knew he would have never been able to drop that nickname; it had always felt too nice.

_just do whatever, I don’t care_

Percy sighed silently before scrubbing his face with his hands, laying back on the cushions of the sofa while Leo let out a whistle, exchanging a high-five with Connor.

A moment later, Leo dropped the phone on Percy’s lap again while slowly getting up from the sofa. “He’s totally yours now,” the curly-haired boy stated, directed towards the bathroom. Percy followed his voice as he walked. “Just kiss him goodnight or something!”

He frowned, reading the last message that had appeared in the chat. _I’ll be off now_.

A confusing mix of relief and disappointment washed through him as he typed. _This early man?_

_yeah my eyes are tired. you on tomorrow?_

Percy sucked in a breath at the perspective of gaming with him again. Of Nico actually asking _him_ to play again. _Absolutely_ , he answered. _Text me whenever_.

 _fine_ , was Nico’s reply.

Just as he was about to write him a goodnight text, he stopped to ponder whether to follow Leo’s advice or his own. Because he couldn’t kiss him goodnight, he thought. But he could do something similar.

He was grateful to be high enough for his inhibitions to be sleeping when he hit send. _Gnight boo_.

Biting on his nails, he started bouncing his leg again.

 _bye_ , was Nico’s last text.

“You guys know what time it is?” Connor spoke over Percy’s conflicting thoughts.

Jason sighed from his armchair. “Let me check the pool temperature,” the blonde stated, lazily standing up from his seat.

Percy couldn’t yet get over the fact that Nico had just wished him goodnight. Even in his own way, Percy couldn’t recall a time he had done that before. It was just difficult for him to believe all it took were a few sappier texts and chemically tuning down his constraints.

He locked his phone when Charles patted him on the shoulder, informing him they were about to head outside to the pool, and that he’d better leave his phone in the living room to avoid the possibility of it taking a dip inside, again. Percy obediently complied, looking at the others already walking towards the glass doors to the backyard. He did the same, lazily following them, hands deep inside in his pockets.

“It’s warmer than I thought,” voiced Connor from behind him as they were both stepping outside on the stone pavement.

Percy took in the white lights shining from the bottom of the built-in pool and the glow of the outdoor lamps present at each corner of the patio. The yellow lamps were just dim enough for his senses to avoid another overload, but just bright enough to clearly see the details of Jason’s back muscles as he calmly removed his white t-shirt along with his grey sweatpants.

Percy averted his gaze as quickly as possible from his friend’s thighs before at least trying to focus on the clear, blue water in front of him.

Leo, Travis, and Charles all mimicked Jason and gradually began undressing like that was the most natural thing. And, they wouldn’t even have been wrong, if only Percy’s self-consciousness hadn’t changed his whole perspective on the situation. He had traded his one-of-the-boys mentality with a subtle uncomfortableness in knowing that he was now the only one who just couldn’t keep himself from staring at Charles’s shoulder muscles and, again, Jason’s lower stomach.

Sitting down on one of the cushioned beach chairs close to the pool’s edge, he couldn’t help but feel strange. Foreign. And he had always hated that feeling.

Having ADHD had evidently not been enough punishment; the “liking boys” part had needed to be added to the mess, just to make his life more unbearable than it already was. And, ADHD was actually fine. He was used to the racing thoughts, the people commanding him to listen, and the lack of self-esteem and confidence in himself. But he had never been used to realizing being attracted to a couple of his best friends without turning to denial.

Even though his state could definitely be considered altered, it still didn’t help him perceive those hot feelings as safe enough to even conceive. But even considering them totally out of place and unwelcome didn’t stop them from coming onto him like inescapable waves.

“Waddup, skater boy,” Connor’s voice came from behind him. A hand resting on Percy’s shoulder, he sat down next to him on the chair, still fully dressed. “Cheer up!” He spoke drunkenly, receiving an approving “yeah!” from Leo, already dipping his feet in the water.

Percy shrugged, messing up his own hair yet again with one hand. “It’s just a moment,” he lied, delivering a small smile.

Connor’s blue eyes scanned his face, searching for something Percy couldn’t see before he got closer to his face with a tiny smirk. “Hey, man, what’s the matter?” He whispered. “You know you can talk to me, lover boy.”

Percy was sure they had already talked enough for the night. “I appreciate that,” he started, sighing shortly. “Just a bad trip, I guess.”

The wavy-haired boy let out a laugh. “Not in the mood?”

“Let’s put it like that,” Percy replied in a murmur.

“You got time to help me with that something I was talking you about, then,” the other concluded, patting him on the shoulder while standing back up. “Then you’ll talk.”

Percy observed him and his confident smile before glancing at the others: Charles sitting on the border, dipping his legs inside the pool. Jason close to him, swimming inside, arms laying on the edge to keep him up. Leo was underwater, while Travis laid face-up on the surface, floating with his eyes closed. Percy swallowed again before averting his eyes from Jason running a hand through his short-trimmed hair and removing his glasses before he glanced at Connor again, finally gathering enough self-composure to get up.

“Fair enough,” he concluded before they were both heading inside.

Percy followed the younger boy inside the kitchen corridor and towards the dining table area, on which laid all the empty alcohol bottles they had consumed. Getting closer to the table, Connor reached for the wine bottle in the center before scanning the kitchen for something else.

“Need help?” He questioned as Connor got on his knees to search under the table.

The boy seemed to not have heard him, until he just lazily mentioned a “Nah” before his face turned into a playful grin.

“Found it, you bastard,” he stated in a murmur, getting up from the floor.

Percy watched him fail and fall back down once before he could finally stand up properly, holding the small cork in between in fingers.

“Am I allowed to know what we're doing?” Percy questioned, lost.

“Nah,” Connor replied again, walking out of the kitchen with the two items in hand. Percy followed, hands in his pockets. “I usually do this with T, but I didn’t wanna spoil his mood since he’s not being an asshole for once.”

“That's just ‘cause he’s not talking,” Percy corrected him, causing the other to snicker.

“He likes it when people find him annoying,” Connor remarked, shrugging and walking inside the ground-floor bathroom. “Cannot blame him. It is kinda funny.”

Entering the tiled room, he signaled for Percy to come in as he placed the bottle on the edge of the squared sink. Connor directed himself towards the wooden shelving unit near the shower door, kneeling down to look at the lower shelves. Percy frowned, puzzled, as the younger boy stood up again helped by the solid structure, a jugful of some white liquid in his hand.

He sang under his breath as if that was some kind of weird routine task.

“So,” the younger boy casually started, placing the heavy jug near the empty bottle with a thump. He started opening it. “You wanna tell me why you were looking at Jason’s ass just before?”

It took a moment for Percy to process what he was being asked. When he did, he widened his eyes, a huge amount of warmth rising to his face.

He started vehemently shaking his head. “No, I didn’t…” he stuttered, being interrupted by Connor’s voice shortly after. “Yeah, yeah, sorry, I couldn’t help but notice when I do that too,” he continued, stopping to stare at nothing for a second. He briefly glanced at Percy, lowering his voice. “But not, like, _all_ the time.”

“That’s different, man, it’s not something I can control…” Percy tried to explain, but Connor was looking at him again, handing him the open jug.

Percy just took it in his hands out of habit before realizing he had no idea what to do with it.

“Well, it’s not something I do consciously either. I just happen to look at a pretty guy’s arms a lot,” Connor clarified, holding the bottle at the body with one hand, with the other wrapped around the bottleneck acting as a funnel. He gestured to his upper hand with his head, making Percy obediently starting to pour the liquid inside the bottle after lowering his head, face still overwhelmingly hot. A couple seconds later, he recognized the liquid being simple hand soap as Connor started talking again. “Is that why you seem troubled, though?”

“I…” Percy started, soon realizing his fine movement skills definitely needing more attention than trying to plan out a whole conversation to avoid seeming guilty of checking out some of his friends. He sighed silently, eyes fixed on the soap slipping out of the opening. “I’m not used to feeling like this.”

Connor hummed thoughtfully, evidently not caring about the amount of soap being poured on his fingers. “You mean gay?”

Percy sighed again to avoid answering right away. “Yeah,” he said, as casually as possible.

“Dude, it’s not like you just started liking guys. It’s that now you started noticing how not-straight some stuff you do is,” Connor explained. “You get what I mean?”

“I guess,” Percy hesitated.

“I mean, if you like Jason’s ass, good for you,” he continued, making Percy even more ashamed of the fact that he couldn’t actually argue with that. “But it’s not weird until you make it be. They’re too straight to notice anyway, so it’s convenient to just enjoy it,” he stopped for a moment, then snickered. “Just think of all the people who’d pay to be half-naked in a pool with a bunch of studs. You get to be in every straight girl’s dream for free.”

Percy stayed quiet for a moment, just focusing on holding up the jug at the right inclination.

He recognized Connor as being right, in some sense. It wasn’t like he was just now noticing Charles’ attractiveness and Jason’s features. What he was feeling didn’t feel and sound any different than the numerous times in which he would glance at the girls his friends introduced him at parties. He still wasn’t proud of having made out with one of them per month on average, considering his relationship status at the time, but, on a positive note, there definitely was no risk of that happening now.

He hummed lowly, taking in the information. Also, he might as well ask all the questions, he thought. “You ever think of making out with your guy friends?”

Connor snickered. “That’s not even a question, dude.”

“So, not weird?” Percy questioned, wondering how much time had passed since he had started filling the bottle.

“Nah, man, it’s human nature,” Connor dismissed him.

“Not even having a thing for hands?”

“Dude, I have a thing for neck veins,” he mentioned. “That’s definitely not the weirdest thing I’ve heard of.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Percy concluded, glad to have lost that one discussion.

In his content state, though, he had trouble recognizing why the soap wasn’t sliding inside Connor’s fist anymore. It was only after they both stared at it drooling down his hand that they realized the bottle was finally full.

“Oh, sorry,” Percy mindlessly apologized, stopping the flow.

Connor just giggled, shaking off the excess liquid in the sink and opening the faucet, letting the water rinse it off his fingers. “This hand’s seen nastier stuff.”

Percy looked at him, chuckling in turn. “Stickier stuff,” he agreed, using one of his moments of clarity to search for the jug’s cap. “Smellier.”

“Okay, horny boy, we get it,” Connor teased, scrubbing away the remaining soap. Percy just mindlessly smirked at him before screwing on the lid.

Percy remembered to ask again what that was for after placing the jug where it belonged. Connor dismissed him, again, telling him to “go back to the naked boys” and that he would’ve been right back. He thanked him with a drunken, probably-too-strong pat on the shoulder before he was off towards the stairs to the basement.

Percy did raise an eyebrow at him, but didn’t complain about going back outside.

He was feeling unusually warm, and was especially curious about trying out what high-swimming felt like. Miraculously remembering the almost-finished joint still laying on the coffee table, he picked it up after throwing one last attentive glance to his phone, hoping to remember its location on the sofa’s cushions. Feeling less bothered and, honestly, a tad bit more confident about not getting himself into embarrassing situations, he started unbuttoning his pants as soon as he opened the glass doors to the backyard. Leaving the backdoors ajar, he escaped into the fresh midnight air into the quiet conversation the others were all engaged in apart from Jason, who held his phone in hand over the water, as usual.

Percy strolled to the beach chairs to lay his baggy blue jeans on the flat cushion after his shoes and socks, followed by his dark red hoodie and his white, loose shirt. The air hit his skin, but he guessed it as being not chilly enough for him to catch a cold. Lazily crouching down beside the edge, he repressed the instinct of diving into the water cannon-ball style, instead plunging in slowly helping himself with his arms.

Travis looked at him from the other side, glancing behind him towards the house. “Where’s Connor, Jackie?” He asked just as Percy was about to plunge in his head, too. He pushed his damp, wavy hair was pushed back from his forehead and smirked. “I thought you were supposed to finish together.”

“Sorry, he needed a moment to recover,” Percy replied, earning a chuckle from Jason.

The other boy raised his eyebrows at him splashing water his way. “At least he had a good time,” Travis retorted as Percy’s mouth turned up in a smug smile. After that, he pushed himself down to the bottom of the pool, crossing his legs and gradually letting out bubbles of breath as he relaxed and gently hit the pavement.

He re-emerged after a minute, breathing in discretely and letting out a satisfied sigh, rubbing his eyes and opening them to see Jason pushing away his phone, now laying with his head hanging back and eyes closed. Percy pushed back his own damp hair away from his eyes, admiring his jawline and wet cheekbones. He tried not to linger on Jason’s chest too long before he picked up the unfinished joint laying behind him and traveled closer, asking his friend for the lighter.

As Jason glanced at him like Percy had just woken him from a ten-minute nap, he pointed at his pants laying on the ground close to the poolside. Percy managed to light up the final portion of the cigarette in between his lips, inhaling deeply to let it burn faster at the top. He squinted his eyes and put the filter in between his fingers as he did so, looking to his side, noticing Jason’s eyes glancing interested at his hand. Percy turned his head towards him, briefly glancing at his cold-blue eyes and dark, thin lashes. He had always had the prettiest eyes, apart from Annabeth’s, Percy thought, in addition to looking stupidly good with glasses. Percy had been so dumb convincing himself that wanting to “be like him” could be the explanation for the physical attraction he felt towards him. The brief picture of his hand getting closer to Jason’s lips, letting them disclose for Percy to place the cigarette in between them briefly crossed his mind in a flash, looking as inviting as a piece of his mom’s iced cake.

He only recognized it as not being just a thought when he found his hand already approaching his friend’s mouth, a spark of panic lit inside him for a brief second. It immediately subsided when Jason made no comment about it, seeming to appreciate the favor. Percy’s eyes glued to Jason’s wet lips and the small, white scar on their upper left part as the other boy inhaled, feeling his breath on his fingers until something at the corner of his eye miraculously managed to catch his attention.

Percy’s head turned to his left, seeing Connor crouched behind Travis, evidently having just spoken to him but still looking at Percy with a smug, shit-eating grin. Eyes widening for a split second, he turned towards Jason, finding his friend’s fingers about to replace Percy’s around the joint. Letting the blonde do as he pleased, he turned forward, red-faced and imitating Jason’s posture with one arm laying on the border of the pool for sustainment before he could process what had just happened. He didn’t pay any attention to Connor letting out a brief giggle while starting to undress as he concentrated on the warmth rising to his cheeks and hoped and prayed it wouldn’t travel anywhere down, despite feeling that something in between his legs had already grown stiffer.

He let out a silent sigh as he remembered Connor’s words. “It’s not weird ‘til you make it weird” repeated in his head, forcing his shoulders to relax before he glanced to his right again, where Jason was just simply handing him the cherry, allowing Percy the last hint. He gladly accepted, touching Jason’s fingers as he took it in between his fingers and let a sense of anxiety bubble up inside when he did so.

He stared at the cigarette in front of him, questioning himself on the why. Connor was right: he had fallen asleep on Jason’s legs or shoulders more times than he could remember, ran his hands through Leo’s hair just as many, and ironically, suggestively winked at Charles definitely more than just once. It made no sense for him to stop now because of the irrational fear of his friends turning against him out of nowhere and without any reason if not him just being himself. Enjoying his touchy-feely self’s behaviors maybe a bit too much than he had initially thought didn’t change anything for them; it just did for him. None of them would ever see inside his little bubble, though, so what was the harm in fantasizing? And in acting, considering no one had ever been uncomfortable?

A small smile appeared on his mouth when he felt the humidity left by Jason’s lips on the filter tip, finishing up the cigarette before placing it behind him at last. And that was because, even recognizing his desire to taste more of that, he had always known it had been one-sided. But that was okay, ‘cause Jason didn’t need to know. Nobody needed to know. It was his right to keep that for himself; just, not out of fear. Privacy and secrecy were two different things, and shame and guilt needed to be applied to neither of them.

Alternatively, he was probably just tripping.

“You up for a freediving contest, Percie?” Charles asked him from the opposite side of the pool, Percy’s vision focusing on the real world again.

He smirked lazily at the muscular boy in front of him. “I don’t know,” he spoke, raising an eyebrow and winking at him. “You ready to lose, big boy?”

After that, the night went on as it often did and like it should have always been. Percy did win the free-diving contest by at least ten seconds, and they all tried at least once to beat him without success. After they had dried off and put on their clothes again came the moment to choose which movie to fall asleep to. They settled for the whole _John Wick_ series surprisingly voted by both Travis and Jason together, for once. Towards the end of the second movie, though, Travis had already fallen asleep directly on Jason’s shoulder, which imitated him soon after against the armrest of the sofa after moving him aside with a certain care. Charles had fallen asleep during the process, too, and Percy was already seeing things, lids lowering and opening again like two broken shutters before Connor took the initiative to stand up and turn off the TV, proposing them to crash in the guest room’s bed. The fact that even Leo was yawning when crawling up the stairs said a lot about the time. When they all slumped on the double bed, not bothering to close the door behind them, they didn’t complain about the bed being somewhat tight for the three of them as they all fell asleep. Grateful that he had ended up in the bed with the two relatively smallest ones out of the six, he slept somewhat peacefully, only sporadically bothered by Leo’s habit of sleep-talking. Too tired for the idea of conversing with his unconscious friend about the weirdest shit as he usually did, he woke up around eleven o’clock the morning after with Jason shaking them awake, urgently explaining them his parents’ change of plans, coming home in the early afternoon instead of that evening, anticipating their return from one of those married-couples-trips in one of their second homes.

Percy traveled home on his longboard after helping the others hide any proof of last night’s drug and alcohol consumption, including Travis' puke from the kitchen sink. Percy had no idea why the guy hadn’t thought about puking in the toilet like every other human being, but he doubted he would've gotten an answer anyway considering how hangover they all were. All apart from Charles, at least, being the only one with a functioning self-control mechanism.

Percy's stomach did feel a bit fucked up, too, which didn’t bother him as much since he forced himself to avoid sweets and to drink water. He threw himself on his messy bed as soon as he got home after greeting his parents. He had checked his phone a couple times on the drive home, not finding any messages from the person he was most interested in. Annabeth had contacted him instead, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to start a conversation; his head was just too full of everything except what he had the duty to think about. Finish up another essay and start going through the material for his Chemistry test the following Monday were stuff his bones knew he definitely wasn't going to do.

Not when he was waiting for Nico to finally game with him before the start of the online tournament.

He still hadn't found a way to tell his mom about that side-project of his but, to be honest with himself, he was just straight-up avoiding the conversation now. After he had broken her the news about his and Annabeth’s breakup, feeling like a disappointment yet again couldn't be a problem if the people he was disappointing knew nothing about his bad choices. That's what he repeated himself slumping on his chair, put on his headset, and ran the _NuOlympus_ application from his Steam account. Nico and Hazel accepted his invite half an hour later, and they started training.

Hearing Nico’s voice after days of silence ignited a rush of energy inside him he didn’t even realize he possessed. Because, fuck, had he missed him. He couldn’t have shut up even if he wanted to, which he knew Nico did not appreciate; considering Hazel instead didn’t comment on his excited commentary, he couldn’t be bothered to stop himself from rambling. He did make both of them laugh unintentionally a couple of times, though, which for sure contributed to his general hyper-positive mood. Feeling that focused and excited showed in the fact that they concluded their session with two victories and another four podium-places. Percy struggled to remember a time he felt that satisfied with himself, and couldn’t rip his proud grin off his face even when Paul called him for dinner that evening.

When asked about it, though, he dismissed both him and his mom with an “I just like Saturdays” before burying himself back inside his room to reply to Nico’s messages until he fell asleep with his phone in hand around eleven o’clock.

The day came of the start of the tournament and, the more hours passed, the more he could sense his attention shift from his readings. He decided he would have submitted his essay late and that he would have studied for his test late that night when his alarm chimed around noon.

After entering the tournament with the code they had provided him with, he found his Hermes character in the center, Nico’s Hades and Hazel’s Apollo to his sides. He smiled as he heard the abrupt conclusion of their conversation as they realized he had just joined.

“Was that something I needed to know before we start kicking ass?” Percy asked in his usual upbeat tone, fidgeting with the buttons on his controller.

“We just need to know to know you’re good to go,” Hazel cheered. Percy could tell she was smiling. “Did you empty your bladder first?”

Nico grunted, disgusted, but Percy’s chuckle covered the noise. “I’m a big boy, mom. I can hold it.”

She giggled as Percy observed Hades’ clothes change into some white-golden robe and a golden crown. The sniper gun in his hands also changed its color from blue to silver. He snickered. “Dressing up for the occasion, ghost boy?”

“Shut up,” Nico replied, sighing. “I should as well use the new skins now that I bought them.”

“He’s overdressing as usual,” Hazel teased, earning another complaint from Nico right before the time came for them to start their first turn.

Percy could have never imagined he could miss Nico’s presence so much. He didn’t feel excited just because they were probably about to confront the best players in North America, or because they were about to land right where more than half the participants were already raising hell; he felt thrilled just being with two of the best people he could’ve ever imagined teaming up with. Nico could have said anything into his ears without Percy helping but feel a sense of fondness and of blind trust for his suggestions in particular. He had no idea if that could be considered good or not but, in his point of view, it felt much more comforting than he could have ever hoped for. He knew Nico had his back; he had shown that more times than Percy could count.

He fell so rapidly and deeply into his concentration-mode that he gathered five squad kills just in the first ten minutes of the game. He grinned proudly and confidently, eyes rapidly scanning the screen for any sign of movement, knowing nothing could stop him now. There was no way he was going to let this occasion go to waste. During the first of the three matches of the first turn, he did not lose focus even when he heard his mom calling him from the living room, for whatever reason. He just couldn’t. He was so deep in the game that he might as well have been inside it.

Joy sparked in his chest when, at the end of the third game, they turned out to the second place without even too much effort on his part.

“These guys are kinda good, not gonna lie,” he stated as he sighed and laid back on his rotating chair.

“Yeah, it’ll only be worse as we go on,” Hazel replied to him, the sound of something shifting around the mic in the background. “Now we wait for the results.”

Percy hummed, clearly bothered by having to wait before resuming the competition. “Did you guys keep track of anything?”

“I did. I’m calculating,” Nico chimed in, voice low and keyboard clicking under his fingers. Percy frowned. “Yeah, we should have thirty-two points in total. Not bad.”

“Three-two?” Percy exclaimed, wide-eyed and smiling like an idiot. “You kidding? That’s a fucking lot.”

“We’ve been lucky this time, though,” Nico mentioned, probably referring to their uncommonly sporadic encounters with other enemy squads during their second match. “Don’t think it’ll be that easy now.”

Percy shushed him towards the end. “Don’t call it, man!” he begged, staring at the ceiling of his room while spinning around on his chair. “Why even start worrying now?”

“It’s called being realistic,” Nico objected, to which Percy rolled eyes before interrupting him, laying forward on his seat. “That’s not the point! Trust me, we’ll do well. We’re Golden League anyway. We’re supposed to be as good as them.”

Before Nico could retort again, Hazel chimed in. “That’s fine, guys, it’s not like we’ve got something to lose anyway,” she sighed, sounding like she was stretching her arms. “Percy’s right. We’ll do our best.” Percy smiled approvingly at that.

After waiting for what felt like an hour, during which he had to stop himself from starting new training matches multiple times, he finally focused on finishing up the lunch his mom had brought to his room. He did feel like a bad son (and a bad person overall) when he pretended to stare at his open Word tab with his barely-started essay on it. He avoided mentioning he was actually just waiting for the results of what was the first part of the qualifying tournament for an actual live event that had zero relevance for his academic career yet again.

But, he did brush the guilt off pretty fast when Hazel unmuted her mic on their Discord call to announce the results were up. Percy had almost choked on his food while rushing to the open tab with the _NuOlympus_ ranking from their first round, missing the button “refresh” a couple times. When the results displayed in front of him, looking for their team’s number in the ranks, he stared with a stupidly wide grin.

“What?! Is that the fifth place?” Hazel cheered into her mic. “Alright, I really didn’t expect _that_. Damn, guys, I’d high-five you if I could.”

“You’ll do that in the actual arena, baby!” Percy stated triumphantly, raising his arms to the ceiling and laying back on his chair.

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Nico warned as he unmuted himself. His voice was as calm as ever. “Get ready for the next round and don’t get too excited.”

“Ohw, just celebrate for once, grumpy-head!” Hazel complained, tone cheerful. “Don’t know about you, but I definitely didn’t expect anything above 10th place.”

“I won’t tell you I told you so if that really doesn’t happen,” Nico concluded, but his dry tone didn’t drain a quarter of Percy’s spirit.

Because he just knew Nico was smiling. He could hear it in the way his voice had softened at the end of the sentence.

That didn’t change their poor results in the first match of the second round, on which Percy didn’t comment or let himself be discouraged. It was true, players were now much more experienced and difficult to take down; they reacted at least as fast as him, always leaving out a few lucky exceptions. He started second-thinking what he had said only when he did recognize a couple players from notorious teams. One of them, Nico noted, had placed sixth in another recent special circuit of another tournament. Despite that, what Percy did know was that big names meant nothing if one managed to either surprise them or predict their strategy.

Percy being absolutely shitty at the latter, but more than decent at the former, he left most of the work to Hazel or Nico. Which didn’t disappoint, considering their great synergy. And, they had needed a lot of that when it came to the second match when, as they were about to drop from the ship, Percy had jumped definitely too early by mistake. He had tried hard not to let panic shut his brain down. After an extremely brief exchange between him and his teammates, they had decided to follow him as best as they could, instead of landing with the other players to start gathering more kill points they had neglected the match before because of their short survival time.

Nico and Hazel did still land forward in the map, closer to the center of the ring than he was; and he was alone. For the first time in his whole _NuOlympus_ gaming experience, he had no one covering his back, and that didn’t feel good. Especially not during a crucial match in an official tournament.

“We’ll move towards you, but try to not get killed in the meantime,” Hazel mentioned while Nico kept quiet. “The ring closes in a minute, so don’t you dare get caught outside.”

“Copy,” was Percy’s only reply as he rushed to search for a good armor first-thing. Weapons could wait; he first needed to make sure he wouldn’t be an easy target.

He had landed close to the map borders, the eclosing forest surrounding him, and his environment pretty empty in regards to items. He did spend time following the flow of the river cutting the map in two, sighing silently out of relief when he found a couple of looting spots along the way.

“Should be alright now,” he notified, starting to sprint towards their pointers on the map. Nico briefly acknowledged him with an “Alright” before Percy could hear Hazel warn Nico of the two enemies approaching them. They engaged them right away while Percy kept on racing towards them.

He hadn’t realized he was running without any kind of cover for everyone to see until he was hit with a series of bullets from behind. He cursed under his breath, rapidly scanning his environment for any place to hide. Swiftly taking cover behind the first large tree he could find, he used his Poseidon ability to materialize under a rock wall, behind an outcrop that allowed him to turn around and observe the full squad coming towards him. “Fucking shit,” he whispered. Nico and Hazel were still sporadically firing, but she took the time to answer him anyway. “You in trouble?”

“Three guys and I’ve got no healing items,” he rushed to explain before he took in a breath and aimed at one of them in the distance. He thanked his gun for having a somewhat-good range, but he was still too exposed to have the time to take down one of them alone. They had already spotted him; it was a matter of seconds before they would have surrounded him. “I’m so dead.”

“Not yet,” Nico mentioned. “I’m coming towards you. Use your ability to lose time and avoid damage. I should make it before they down you.”

The confidence in his tone had been enough to make Percy quickly stop panicking, but it gave them the time to come even closer and start firing at him again before Percy could dodge the bullets with Poseidon’s water-teleport, moving behind the same tree. His health was dangerously low as he started shooting the same one again, a Zeus character before he surprisingly managed to down him. He still hadn’t given Poseidon’s ability time to recharge, so he just pathetically kept on rotate around the tree, trying to avoid any additional damage. He knew he couldn’t run, but he also knew those two guys probably wouldn’t have wasted one of their special abilities on a lone enemy like him. That was probably his one advantage; which wasn’t a lot, but he still had the chance to survive while waiting for Nico.

Just as he thought that, he luckily thought back to his own special ability, and the advantage it would have given _him_ instead.

“Use your shield,” Nico suggested, reading his mind. “Almost there.”

“Was thinking about that,” Percy hastily replied as he used his teleport ability for the last time, to get as far from his enemies as possible before raising his water barrier and starting to fire behind its protection, invulnerable to all the bullets he would have received if he had remained exposed. Nico had always told him to distribute the damage between enemy teammates if he was near, but Percy couldn’t know how much time it would have taken him before Nico would have found him.

Despite that, he decided to try. He aimed, fired, and reloaded on a loop, while the other two split up (an Apollo and a Hestia character) to sprint towards him from two different sides, so Percy couldn’t do anything but aim at just one of them. In five seconds his shield wouldn’t have protected him anymore, and he still hadn’t managed to take down Hestia while he made out the sound of a rapid bullet fire behind him. He replaced his weapon with a charged rifle when he ran out of bullets, and the wave came down. He had forgotten to recharge his armor as he watched his enemy finally about to fire before another series of bullets hit the guy along with another one from his own gun.

“Should be done here,” Nico stated, and Percy turned around to find him ten feet behind him, recharging his weapon. “Finish them and then move your ass.”

Percy smiled, his muscles unknotting as he patched himself up with the healing items Nico had left behind before heading towards the first guy he had knocked down. “Thank you, boo,” he said, almost too naturally, hoping to sound more ironic than not.

Nico just grunted, and Hazel quietly snickered before she could ask. “Move towards me, guys. We’re doing good.”

They reunited after a little while with Nico always behind Percy, at a safe distance to intervene. They still ended up in tenth place despite gathering four kills in total, which wasn’t bad at all, considering one kill as one very important point.

That was why they focused on killing more than surviving, which could have been a good strategy if only they would have been certain of their luck when it came to shields and armors. They seemed to be doing a decent job, even though Percy really couldn’t keep track of their points at all like Nico could. Despite now hyper-focusing for hours and his attention wavering less than usual, his brain was still ADHD. And, no amount of concentration or interest in a subject could have changed that. It showed in many positive and negative sides of playing with him: and, impulsivity was definitely one of them. And it was mainly because of that if he got sick and tired of keeping quiet about their unbelievable back luck with items, at the start of their fourth and last match for the semi-finals round.

“What’s up with the shit armors here?” Percy complained, snorting loudly. “I don’t remember the game being this annoying.”

“We can do like this, too,” Nico replied, collecting guns behind him in the meantime. Hazel spoke, too. “It’s not too bad, PerPer. You need my shield?”

He moaned again in frustration. “No, it’s okay,” Percy politely refused, turning around and sprinting towards the center of the map.

A certain idea rapidly crossed his mind, making him stop in his tracks to look around. He still had three battle passes he hadn’t even touched, for Christ’s sake. Honestly, he had forgotten about them in the first place since his brain had always had trouble remembering that things existed even when he couldn’t see them. Why the hell Nico and Hazel had both never even mentioned those BP, he didn’t know.

But he was definitely about to find out what could be done with them.

“Imma head for the Hades’ cave,” Percy announced as he started running the opposite direction, towards the nearest confines of the map where he knew he would have found something giving them some advantage. “You guys can go on.”

“What?” Nico questioned, tone surprised; just not the good way. “You’re kidding me.”

“No way,” Hazel stated, rushing behind him. “We know what happens when you’re alone, Percy.”

“There’s eleven squads left, and you think we won’t meet one on the way?” Nico inquired, again, sounding annoyed. He still hadn’t moved from his spot. “And we could just go to Hestia’s temple to find…”

“Dude, we got twelve battle passes in total. What do you think you need ‘em for?” Percy interrupted him, frustrated. “If we find someone there, we kill ‘em and grab what they have. It sounds like a good plan to me.”

“It’s _not_ a good plan when the ring is closing and we’re low on health items,” Nico retorted. Still, Percy could see his pointer following him on the map. He talked again before he could hear what he knew Nico was going to say. “Geez, trust me for once, ghost boy. I’ve done stuff like this. We won’t end up outside the ring, okay?”

“I mean, it’s actually not a good plan,” Hazel broke the silence after a few moments of them racing through an open, large dry-grass area towards the small entrance of the cave. “But, I mean, could be worse. It’s still the final match. Better now than never.”

Percy’s headphones clearly caught on Nico’s resigned sigh. “I’ll stay outside to watch while you go in. I don’t like surprises.”

Percy grinned. “Deal,” he replied, hoping Nico could catch the affection in his tone.

They did arrive at the location around a minute later, he and Hazel entering the cave first. Hazel’s Athena character stood in front of his, using her strategic ability to check for any enemy presence close to them. When no sign of other players appeared on their radar, they proceeded inside, deep down towards the massive metal door waiting for one of their virtual passes to reveal the room’s insides. Percy switched places with her in front of the entrance before he opened the room. In front of him stood floating items of different colors and sizes right upon the black rocks spread around the circular room, spinning around slowly to show themselves off. Percy swiftly entered the room and uselessly tried to spend less time admiring the ultra-rare weapons, the golden armors, the maximum-capacity backpacks, and more time actually selecting which ones to take.

“You need a gun, ghostie?” He casually asked into the mic.

“I would’ve asked,” Nico replied, of course refusing the offer. “Move it.”

He didn’t make any comments regarding the name, though, which still made Percy crack a smile.

“Fine, fine,” he replied, scanning through the floating guns. Hazel had already finished gathering the weapons of her choice, purposefully leaving all the rapid-fire guns to Percy. “This stuff is crazy,” he commented to no one, lowering his voice.

Just as he finished his sentence, checking his remaining ammo, he heard bullets shooting far behind him, towards the entrance. Nico’s banner signaled him that it was his character that had opened fire.

“What’s that?” Percy asked with urgency, already running towards the room’s metal door. Hazel was already in front of him, cursing under her breath and drawing her first-choice weapon.

“I told you there’d be people,” Nico grumbled, conceited. “They’re three. Coming this way.”

He didn’t need to worry about his own pride hurting now, Percy thought. He just needed to act.

“Percy, wait here,” Hazel commanded as she caught him hastily sprinting towards the entrance.

He knew he should have just kept his distance. They were relatively safe in there, waiting for their enemies to walk inside and take them by surprise. He was just uncomfortable thinking about Nico taking his place as their shield this time.

“How’s it?” Percy worried, stopping himself relatively close to the entrance. Realizing he was probably too exposed, he moved behind a crack inside the rock.

He could see Hades moving inside the cave backward, crouching down to aim at the second squad just outside. His armor had been damaged, though, which was what was happening now, too. They were aiming from a distance like Nico was, but Percy had no idea why Nico wasn’t doing anything about it. He didn’t even have a sniper gun anymore.

Nico didn’t answer him, though; he just pinged the location of their enemies without a word, after which Hazel’s Athena approached him fast, joining him in their shooting match. Soon after, Hades had been knocked down.

“Wait for it,” Hazel told Percy while slowly walking back towards him, stopping to reload. “One down. You go now, PerPer. Lemme recharge.”

Percy didn’t need to be told twice. Hazel used her ability to radar-scan the enemies so that he could locate them from inside the cavern just as he activated Poseidon’s teleporting ability to throw himself right outside the cave, as near as possible to the other players. When he did, it took him less than five seconds to down the remaining two, thanks to his special ultra-rare assault rifle. He finished them all in a second moment, waiting for Hazel to use her remaining ambrosia to get Athena’s health high enough to also revive Hades.

“That was smooth, girl!” Percy exclaimed as he scanned through the death boxes of their enemies with a certain kind of satisfaction. Hazel complimented him back before he could talk directly to Nico, raising his eyebrows. “Still not wanting one of those golden armors?”

“That last part was pure strategy,” Nico told him. Percy snickered. “I’m sure you’ve seen that coming a mile away, right?” he teased, with Nico patching himself up behind him.

The other pretend-laughed at his comment before speaking again. “Think about not doing that ever again.”

Percy couldn’t promise that forever; but he had been content enough with just that one time, for now. Just five squads remained, which meant they had to hurry towards the center of the ring before it could have the opportunity to close around them. As they came across a small, familiar conglomerate of broken-down houses, cut in between by a white-marble road, they waited together for someone else to come across them. And, another squad did, just in a style they were not expecting. They were very close to prevailing, but had been careless enough to separate in the exact moment the full squad of three came barging in through the building Hazel was in. So, without her and Percy still being separated from Nico by a two-story building, he had to deal with the full squad by himself; which hadn’t been optimal when Nico didn’t have enough visuals to take down even just one of the others. He did try, though, getting rid of one. After that, the other two quickly spotted him from below his window. One of them running towards him while the other kept the window on close watch, throwing in grenades, he didn’t have many chances to get out alive.

So, they ended up in fifth place, with a total of seven kills, which actually wasn’t too bad at all. Knowing it was finally over, Percy laid back on his chair letting out a sigh from deep inside him, still slightly disappointed.

“It’s over,” Hazel said as she did the same. “Great job, guys. You’re no joke. Both of you.”

“You already know I’m decent enough,” Nico replied, to which Percy let out a whine. “But thank you, _anyway_. Let me finish, geez.”

“Forgive me,” Percy teased, hearing what he was sure were Nico’s fingers tapping his keyboard yet again, probably calculating their total points for the final round. “You’ve been amazing too, girl. There’s still no way I’m in your team.”

Hazel let them argue in silence until she let out a small laugh. “You’ll be with us next year too, PerPer. I’m the latecomer here.”

Percy smiled mindlessly at the promise. Whether empty or true, he didn’t actually care. Just that sentence had filled him up with gratitude; if asked where that came from, though, he wouldn’t have been able to answer.

The sound of Nico’s keyboard stopped filling his ears. “How’s it?” Percy urgently questioned, staring at an undefined point on his screen.

“Thirty,” Nico reported, matter-of-factly. A happy giggle rose in Percy’s throat, which put his arms behind his head before grinning. “That’s crazy. We might fucking pass.”

“Not necessarily,” Nico mentioned, ruining the mood once again. “We don’t know about the other squads.”

“We know you’re not exactly optimistic, Nic,” Hazel retorted with a hint of affection. “If we talk about average, it’s almost safe to say that we should be in the top ten.”

Percy let out a burst of happy laughter then, to which Hazel reacted with a small chuckle herself. “Fuck, we’re going to the finals!”

He heard Nico mutter something under his breath that he couldn't care about after they were all off to their respective duties.

Wide grin still on his face, he couldn't help but jump up from his chair and take his phone out of his pocket, along with throwing his headset on the soft spinning chair. Going through his messages on Discord and his phone, he walked around the room restlessly, impatiently waiting for the ranks to be published. He perfectly knew Nico would have been the absolute first to communicate the final results, but it was still impossible to keep his mind off the thought. His brain liked to focus on just one important information per time, and he didn’t care about the fact that it was way past the hour he should have finished what he still sat incomplete in his computer for the next day; his attention kept aimlessly shifting to the round’s rankings, and his own mistakes during those few matches, scolding himself for everything he could have done better, including that awkward moment too much in which he didn’t remember he was out of ammo before they had come across an enemy squad during the first match, which he prayed Nico and Hazel hadn’t noticed. Despite not being the type to overthink, the thought of them noting and judging him for it gave him chills.

He threw himself on his chair to then stand up again a couple of times while texting his friends' Discord server, all while his conscience kept on poking him with the remainder of his unfinished homework; important homework, considering it could hinder his grade on his Chemistry test and his overall results for American Literature. He had been lucky those were the only two tasks that he had left unfinished from the day before, but he knew himself too well to believe he could have had the right mindset to sit down and complete them without falling asleep.

And he didn’t _want_ to, for Christ’s sake. He had absolutely no interest in what he should have been doing, and his hyperactivity was becoming near unbearable now that he was getting frustrated with himself and his chores.

He really tried to avoid gazing at his skateboard, laying on the side of his door, just knowing he wouldn't be able to stop himself soon enough before he would have ended up outside the door, racing to the closest skate park. But the thought of using his legs for something other than aimlessly walking back-and-forth around his room while keeping himself locked inside waiting for the ranking page to refresh did feel like the best thing.

He tried stopping himself from staring intensely at his skate; he really did. It didn’t do anything to hold himself back from grabbing it, walking out of his room announcing he was going out for a couple hours and that he would have been home for dinner. Sprinting outside in his worn-out flat shoes and run down the stairs, heart beating almost too fast, he raced towards the East River.

Through the neighborhoods and blocks of high condos, the wind pushing his hair away from his eyes, a stupid smile he tried to cover up kept appearing on his lips. He made the promise to treat himself if the rankings would have shown them in the top ten, as Hazel had suggested. Because there was no way he, a hyperactive, kinda slow, kinda dense, seventeen-year-old was now not only being rewarded with decent grades towards the end of his senior year, but was now also proving to be good in something else apart from, maybe, swimming. Damn, he wasn't even that good at skating, for all he knew; he just knew how to fall and had memorized small tricks that had taken him almost too long to learn. Travis had mastered them all in maybe half the time, despite now being at Percy’s same level purely because of laziness. Percy had never been the best at anything he ever did, for one reason or another, and did feel like a curse for someone as competitive as him.

He smiled yet again when he told himself that there probably wasn't just himself to thank. If he and Nico had never met, Percy surely wouldn't have been that crazy to give up both his long-term relationship and his sketchy plans for college; because he surely wasn't going now. Not if they had actually made it to the finals. And because passing the finals would have meant moving on to the live events, in an amazingly big gaming arena where their matches would have been streamed live. And that beat books and SATs by a huge amount. There was no way he was giving up what he had gathered until now; not when Nico was also part of it.

As usual, he arrived at the park and started easy with warming up. All the while he was still waiting for his phone to chime in his pocket from Hazel's or Nico's message notifying him of the results.

And, when it did happen, just as he avoided a potentially dangerous tumble from a railslide trick, he couldn't help but stop in his tracks and hastily unlock his phone.

Nico had sent them a screenshot of the results page, followed by a single message.

_so, we may be in for the finals_

Needless to say, Percy couldn't contain his excitement. He grabbed his board and sat on a close half-wall, a hand in his hair as he stared at the results. They were officially in the seventh position, which clearly meant they had not only made it but were actually _better_ than the three other squads who had scored just three-to-five points less. He honestly hated the way Nico didn’t make it seem like a huge deal.

Hazel had reacted with victory-sign and celebrating emojis, while Percy just stuck to a simple, _FUCK YES BABY_.

After staring at the picture for at least a couple minutes straight, making sure his eyes weren’t just playing tricks, he couldn’t hide his first instinct to call Nico without asking any more questions or making any more comments. He found his thumb stopping close to the call icon near Nico's Whatsapp name. He hesitated more than once, even though he knew he wouldn't have had any problem doing stuff like that just a month before. He questioned himself as to what may be holding himself back, and he allowed himself to look around to the other people present at the park, just minding their own business. A group of three guys was filming another one speeding through a ramp doing mcflips, while another couple of separate groups were evidently just starting to get confident with ollies and beginners' tricks. Other people were just passing by, their little kids observing in wander while the parents watched from behind the metal grates.

The thing that they all had in common, though, was that none of them was paying attention to Percy.

It destabilized him, how much relief came from that realization. It had to be because, somewhere deep inside his mind, he still expected people to detect the fact that he was probably not exactly like them. Which was bullshit, considering at least one of them had to at least have something different from the norm. Percy's difference just laid in the fact that his crush happened to be a boy.

But, none of them needed to know. None of them was even looking at him. They wouldn't have even heard him if he had started talking and stupidly smiling at his phone like he always did when talking to Nico.

Taking in a deep breath, he challenged himself to press that small icon on his screen. And, of course, he wasn't the type to back down.

He watched his phone's background to the calling screen as he brought it to his ear. He started nervously fidgeting with his skate's wheels.

“What?” Was how Nico replied. Percy laughed. “I'm serious. If my dad finds me at the phone he's gonna kill me.”

“Does it mean no video?” Percy asked, still focused on the dirt spots on his skate's wheels.

Nico scoffed. “How's your obsession with video-calls going?”

“It's still bad,” Percy replied, teasing. “How's yours with black clothes?”

“That's called taste,” the other replied, Percy's mouth turning up.

“So it's still bad,” he diagnosed after a hum. “Are you really not happy about the results?”

“Who said that?” Nico questioned, condescending.

“I did,” Percy replied, frustrated. “Man, you didn’t even react! How'm I supposed to know how you're doing?”

“You could ask,” Nico replied, quick. “And I am happy. I just don’t need to send all-caps texts to prove it...”

“Get it, you're still a jerk,” Percy interrupted him, to which Nico actually chuckled. Percy couldn’t help but imitate him.

So, they talked. Percy didn't keep track of time; he had other stuff to think about as he watched the orange sun slowly going down towards the horizon. They didn't chat about anything in particular, but it had been enough for Percy to notice how he had never heard Nico actually try to have a back-and-forth conversation with anyone until then. But, the thing that shocked him the most had been his own sporadically quiet, honeyed tone, which had been so foreign to him outside his and Annabeth's relationship. He lost count of the many times his mouth turned upwards without reason before Nico announced he was going to finish his readings for the day before his father would have found out he was slacking off.  
  
For the first time, Percy hadn't been afraid of ending the call. Somehow, he was now dangerously convinced Nico wouldn't have disappeared again. And, even though he had no way to prove that to himself, he let the setting sun's rays sink into his skin like the heart-warming illusion of Nico having his back. Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again me from the morning after. this chapter was hell to write for a number of reasons but I swear I'm getting to the point.  
> thank you for your patience up until now!
> 
> (+ I know I keep putting jercy in here but I can't help it. they're so good.  
> ++ structure of the Tournament in case I didn't explain it as clearly: round 1 has 4 matches. round 2 (semi-finals) has 4 matches. round 3 (finals) has 5 matches and will start the day after. that's all you really need to know)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god I made it I cannot believe this. and it's before 4am!!! 
> 
> truly happy holidays if you celebrate anything. I don't, but I'm finally feeling the atmosphere now that I've finally finished this chapter.

“Something-96 guy doesn’t know who he’s messing with,” Percy stated encouragingly into his mic, nervously looking around the screen.

His Poseidon had been downed just a minute before, and Hazel was the only one left standing on their team.

She was deafeningly silent on her end, as Nico was. Percy knew she was searching for the last two remaining players, and she let them know she had found them when she whispered “Found you, fuckers,” inside her mic.

Percy tightened his fists around his controller.

After what felt like too long, his ears stopped catching on the sound of bullets and Hazel’s silent curses, since the game was already declaring the other team as the champion of the match.

But they were right behind.

They ended up second during the fifth and last match of the Finals round against the strongest players in North America. And this not only meant a whole bunch of points compared to the first mediocre four matches, which consequently meant ranking high enough to hope to be part of the first ten best players. But also that they would still have a slight chance to be invited to the live events even if that wouldn't have been the case.

Percy wasn’t ready for any of those possibilities.

“Man, you’ve been amazing!” He exclaimed, staring at the screen. “Second place, what the _fuck_!”

“I could’ve done way better PerPer,” Hazel argued, defeated. “I gotta better my reaction time and my bad habit of not checking on my health status…”

“Who’re you kidding, girl, that was awesome!” Percy interrupted her.

“I couldn’t have done that,” Nico joined him. “You took down three of them before they had you. That’s something to be proud of if you ask me.”

“Yeah!” Percy agreed, raising his eyebrows. “And how many points was that? Like, twelve?”

“Thirteen,” Nico corrected him, matter-of-factly. “For a total of twenty-nine points.”

Percy couldn’t believe his ears as he rushed to the results page and waited for it to update. “Two-fucking-nine?” He questioned, shocked, to no one in particular. He let out a happy giggle, lowering his voice. “Man, no way. You think we’re in?”

“Possibly,” Nico replied. “Hazel probably knows best, though.”

She remained quiet.

“Haz?” Percy called her, impatient. He let his leg bounce under his desk.

“Actually…” Hazel spoke after another moment of silence. “This is gonna sound crazy, but I think Percy’s right. We might really be in the top ten.”

A huge, triumphant grin appeared on his face. “No fucking way, girl.”

“I’m serious,” she mentioned. “Give the site ten minutes to refresh and then we’ll know for sure.”

Percy really didn’t like to wait. But, since he couldn’t make time move faster, he tried to distract himself by rambling about the matches. Both Hazel and Nico had been patient enough to join him since they were always too eager to complain about their own flaws. And, sure, they had been prone to stupid mistakes at the start, and Percy surely hadn’t been at his best considering he hadn’t slept the night before. But despite missing their synergy because of nervousness and performance anxiety, they had shockingly made it. And despite Percy had mostly felt like a burden during the entirety of the matches, he wouldn’t have traded his teammates for anyone else ever.

When it felt like his guts couldn’t take the anxiety anymore and his mouse’s pointer had hovered above the refresh button more times than he could count, the page finally reloaded.

He was instantly quiet. After another general moment of silence, his hand went to his hair. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“We’re going!” Hazel cheered, adding a burst of happy laughter at the end. “Guys, we’re literally going to the Premier event!”

“This feels…” Nico spoke while Percy tried processing the consequences of it all. “… Weird.”

“Weird?!” Percy exclaimed, messing up his hair even more and jumping up from his chair. “Dude, we won! We’re literally in the top ten best players. What’s weird about that?”

“It’s just…” Nico hesitated, bewildered. “I really didn’t expect _that_ to happen.”

“That’s because you don’t trust me, you jerk!” Percy teased, a huge grin still on his face.

“I agree, Nick, you really don’t know what optimism is!” Hazel supported him, audibly smiling, too. “It’s a shame we can’t celebrate, guys. I’d hug both of you right now.”

“Oh, so you let her hug you?” Percy teased Nico again, smirking. “I’m a bit offended.”

“It’s not like I have a say in that,” the other replied, back to his usual tone. “She does even when I don’t want to, anyway.”

“You’re damn right, you Grinch,” she commented affectionately. “How about I drop by for a couple kisses on the cheek?”

“I’m fine like this, thank you,” Nico replied, stoic, to which Percy chuckled.

“You always say that,” she concluded, pretend-offended, before they could finally talk about the registration process for the event.

Not five minutes later, they all got an e-mail stating their team had officially been invited to the Premier live event taking place in May, in the state of New York.

After some other minutes of excitement and celebration, Hazel let them know she had to quickly log off since she still needed to study for her advanced French class. Percy took that as a sign he probably had to do something useful with his day, too. So, he reluctantly said goodbye to her and Nico’s voice before closing his Steam account and removing his headset, staring at his messy desktop.

Yet another smile appeared on his lips, and he did nothing to hide or suppress it along with the feeling of having accomplished something worth more than his own life.

He tried to stop himself from freaking out. He really did, but there was no way he wasn’t celebrating his dream of being invited to a gaming arena coming true. No way he was simply moving on with his day.

So, of course, he turned to Nico, messaging him right after. Still vividly hoping and praying he didn’t have anything to do except listening to Percy ramble, he thanked Nico multiple times for having offered him a spot in his team before the younger boy asked him to stop, annoyed, and diverted the topic to something way more comfortably pessimistic.

 _it’s gonna be hard though._ Nico wrote him as Percy didn’t seem to care about his attempts at toning down his enthusiasm.

 _This was hard af too, man! Who're you kidding?_ He wrote back. _I just know you're happy about it, ghost boy. No way you didn’t smile when you read about the placement_.

_there's a difference between being happy and losing common sense._

Percy eye-rolled before letting out a small chuckle. _So how do you even celebrate? Like, are you always so serious?_

_depends on what celebrating means._

_Means going crazy, man. Like, being really happy? Jumping around? Stuff like that._

There was a pause.

_I guess I just bite my nails when I'm nervous._

Percy laughed. Nico's cluelessness was still one of the most lovable aspects of his. He really couldn’t help it. _If I had never seen you smile I’d think you couldn’t even do that_.

_well, consider yourself lucky to have seen that._

A tiny smile crept on his lips as he read.

Percy was fully aware of how few smiles Nico was able to deliver. He’d never know the reason but, at least, he didn’t question it. Also, he didn’t feel like wanting to change that, yet. So of course he'd consider himself lucky. He felt lucky to even know him. _Thank you for that wonderful gift. I'll treasure it til I die._

_stop._

He chuckled again, after which he heard the front door opening and his mom's low heel shoes walk inside, along with the sound of grocery bags touching the floor.

He snapped back to reality, locked his phone, and got up from his chair. Walking outside his door, he found his mom let her wavy hair down on her shoulders.

“Hey mom,” Percy greeted, smiling cheerfully. “Everything good at work?”

She turned towards him, massaging her scalp with a hand and delivering a half-smile. “Hi, honey,” she greeted back, scrutinizing him. “I see someone's happy.”

He didn’t even try to hide his excitement. “Yeah, it's a good day. Sunny outside and everything.”

“Sure, sure,” she replied, bending down to bring the bags into the kitchen. “Have you done studying for tomorrow? And how did the Chemistry test go?”

Percy felt his smile quickly hide back inside.

He walked the few steps towards her, focusing his gaze on the grocery bags and nothing else. “Um,” he hesitated. “I don’t know. The results are not out yet.”

She frowned. “Oh, I thought they had already published them.”

“Just a lot going on at school, I guess,” he replied, opening the fridge to place the milk and the blueberry juice inside. He opted for a change in topic. “Where's Paul?”

“He told me he's got lots to prepare for the finals. He's having meetings with the professors now,” she explained.

He hummed despite his mind drifting off again to its anxious state.

He had impossibly just realized that participating in future events around the state also meant he just couldn’t keep his gaming life a secret anymore.

He had actually considered not telling them at first, though; he went through all the possible ways in which he could have hidden his participation. Lying about staying at one of his friends’ houses, or spending a full day at the library, or literally everything else he could come up with. That was until he had found out that, since he wasn't eighteen yet, the presence of an adult would have been necessary for him to even register. And that was definitely something he just couldn’t get around.

A vague sense of suffocation rose to his throat being faced with the eventuality of having to spill his guts to his parents.

Sure, he could still talk to his dad about it, and he was even pretty sure he would have agreed to it and would have actually promised not to tell. But he shut down the thought replaying the memories of the few times he had tried confessing something private to his dad, and how the man didn’t seem to know what “private” meant when it came to his mom. And, if he couldn’t trust his father with not telling his mom about eating apple pie when he was supposed to be on a low-sugar diet, there was no way he could trust him with discretely drive him to a gaming event _without_ his mom (or Paul) knowing. Even considering the number of times his dad had promised him favors and just forgot half a day later.

He swallowed, realizing he was probably staring at the kitchen counter a bit too hard.

“Honey?” His mom called from behind him. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Huh?” He turned around quickly, eyebrows raised.

“I asked you to check on the laundry and drop your dirty clothes in the basket,” she patiently repeated, putting away the grocery bags. She pointed at his chest. “How long did you keep that hoodie on for?”

He looked down at his blue hoodie and its chewed-on strings. “Uh…”

“Then you can tidy up your room if you’re done with your homework,” she suggested. He snorted in disapproval. “Percy, you haven’t done that in three weeks. You’re not a little kid anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah. Going to college and everything,” Percy dismissed her as he turned around towards the laundry room. “I get it.”

“Don’t forget to update your schedule for the week!” She called again from the kitchen, but Percy was already inside the room and back thinking about the more pressing issues at hand.

He was mindlessly throwing the wet clothes inside the laundry basket when his phone chimed in his pocket.

It was Nico again. _also, did you tell your parents about the event?_

Percy flattened his lips, staring at the text.

Preferring to reflect first to reply with something minimally intelligent aimed at avoiding the question, he threw his phone back in his pocket and kept on with his duties.

It was only logical Nico wanted to know. Percy had already told him about his mom and Paul’s expectations for his future since that was surely the biggest reason why he had been hesitant to participate in the first place. Most of the times, though, he would forget he wasn’t yet independent in his life decisions, because the mysterious and undefined “future” his parents would always talk about had never been a tangible element for him.

He had given Nico the impression to be more independent than he actually was, and Percy had never corrected that since that was what he liked to believe, too. Just, now, he was faced with an uncomfortable secret that could possibly be the end of his side-gaming-project and of his plan to support Nico at a close distance. And it all weighed down on his own shoulders.

Despite still feeling on edge, he completed his first duty before heading back to his room and eye the piles of clothes laid on his desk chair, then on the cupboard wardrobe beside his bed, and beneath his bed. Boxes filled with magazines and books and old clothes he had stacked over the years peeked from under it. That, along with the tissues on the off-white carpeted floor and his skateboard, and then a few books and papers stacked beside his desk, to make space for his mouse. He avoided looking at the empty glasses of juice and the small collection of dirty dishes beside his water bottle on the floor and groaned before sitting back on his unmade bed.

He laid down on his pillow with a thump, phone in hand. His mom would have probably checked on him in a while, so he definitely had some time to rest before getting to work. That also definitely wasn’t true, but still.

Feeling extremely drained always came along with getting up and put some effort into thinking about where to start; just too many things to do all at once that his brain couldn’t process.

Cursing at himself for letting the situation get so out of hand during a few weeks, he thought about replying to Nico’s text before scrolling down his Reddit feed.

He couldn’t deny his mom was right when she reminded him he wasn’t a child anymore. He was supposed to fend for himself and know how to deal with problems in a responsible, mature way (whatever that meant). And, if he thought about that with that mindset, the only way to make it work was to drop everything irrelevant to college and his grades.

He had already made a huge step towards the opposite direction taking a break from his and Annabeth’s relationship, since that had pretty evidently been an awful long-term decision; at least she had always grabbed him by his ankles the times he had started daydreaming about unrealistic shit. Now that they were more distant than they had ever been he felt dangerously free to roam in every direction except the safest one, even with no hard feelings involved.

He couldn’t deny all the daydreams picturing he and Nico doing their own thing without asking for anyone’s permission. It wasn’t even about winning or losing a stupid tournament anymore; it was about sticking together.

Even because Percy was used to losing at life. You don’t really get to live a carefree life when you feel you’re running a marathon with a hundred-pound weight attached to your back. Especially when you’re the only one feeling the weight so that other people frown at you when they notice you can’t run fast enough.

Nico was somewhat similar to him in that aspect. He didn’t seem that different from anyone else; actually, he did seem like a winner, at the start. But that had been before Percy had found out about his debilitating anxiety and his overprotective dad and his dead mom. And all those times Hazel had made it clear that Nico definitely wasn’t the best at handling life stuff. Especially social situations; which were, ironically, maybe the one thing Percy could beat him at. Feeling on the same wavelength as someone else was, for once, so relieving. Despite being his literal opposite on a series of core aspects, it was weirdly easy for Percy to feel at ease around him.

He was so not used to feeling like someone could understand. And he didn’t even know where that feeling even came from.

He turned around on the bed, going back to Nico’s chat and writing down the first lie that came to his mind. _About to do that. What’re you going to do now that the finals are over?_

He stared at the typing sign with one of his legs hanging down the side of the bed until another message popped up.

_got this game I’d like to try out cause my dad’ll be in nyc on friday. he’s got a meeting with the agency he works with and stuff. I’ll be here pretending to study while he’s out._

Percy was definitely familiar with that last sentence. _Uhhh, you’ll be bad then_.

_not really. I just won’t do the extra stuff he asked me to do since I already know I’ll pass._

It took another couple of moments for Percy to process Nico’s first message.

He jolted up when he did. _Wait, your dad’s coming to NY?_

_I just wrote that._

Percy bit his lip, suddenly fully alert. _And you can’t, like, go with him?_

He started nervously playing with his shark-tooth necklace.

_didn’t ask him. why?_

He swiftly replied. _Would be cool to come see you? If you want. No biggie._

There was a pause. Percy was thankful his necklace had always been too short to reach his mouth.

_I doubt he’ll let me come with him, but I’ll let you know._

He had honestly expected Nico to say no but, since that didn’t happen, he definitely considered it an improvement. Conflicting feelings of disappointment and hope mixed inside him, and a small smile appeared on his lips. _That’s great ghost boy._

After a second, and then a third, message, they kept on chatting while Percy hoped and prayed Nico’s dad was in a good mood. Maybe a whole family had just died and their relatives had commissioned him very expensive coffins or something. He had no idea how that worked. Percy also didn’t particularly care about the location, as long as Nico’s dad wasn't going to be present because that man definitely made Percy uncomfortable and bothered at the same time.

He was aware that he was supposed to let Nico know he liked him as more than a friend. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy when the terrifying thought of Nico despising him after his confession and consequently walking away kept on bothering him at night. Nothing was keeping him from making up excuses to ask Nico to stay at his. So, he thought about new games, Nico’s favorite foods, Tyson, and training for the live event, but every one of those excuses sounded so lame to his own ears he couldn’t bring himself to voice his question.

He was still deep in thought, his back on the headboard when his mom knocked before coming in.

“Percy,” she scolded him, severe. “You know what you got to do here.”

He gazed at her for a moment before looking around at his room, suddenly remembering. “Uh,” he hesitated, locking his phone. “Yeah. Sorry.”

He lazily got up while she watched, hand on the door handle and an arm across her chest. “Start with making your bed and put all the clothes on there. Remember to check for any dirty…”

“I know, mom,” he interrupted her, annoyed. “You can go.”

She raised her eyebrows and then her hands. “Okay, honey,” she mentioned after a moment of silence. She gently closed the door behind her. “Please be done by dinner!”

“Yeah,” he replied, loud enough for her to ear while he stared at his messy covers.

He still couldn’t explain the feeling holding him back from doing what he needed to do but, despite feeling like laying in bed all day for no reason, he started making his bed while going back to his previous train of thought.

Christ, he would've given anything to fall asleep on someone’s chest right then and there. He would've given even more to fall asleep on Nico's chest specifically, but that just wouldn’t have been possible. Still, he bet everything would’ve been easier when having him there. He had this calming energy to him that Percy just couldn’t find in anyone else apart from, maybe, Jason. But that wasn't the point.

It was only when he paired the tight squeeze to his stomach reminding him of his future conversation with Nico's presence that it clicked.

He rushed to lay down the pile of clothes in his arms before searching for his phone on the bed, spotting it beneath the covers.

He bit his lip again as he wrote. _I got something to ask you._

 _shoot_ , was Nico's reply.

He sent his text after sucking in a breath. _Tbh I didn’t tell my mom about the tournament yet. I wanna tell her tho, but I'm not really convincing to her. You know what I mean?_

_kinda. so?_

Well, he at least got half of it. _So since you're part of the team and all, and she knows you and she actually likes you, maybe you could convince her to like let me go?_

He wrote again in a rush. _Not by yourself. I mean, there’d still be me. It'd just be easier with you there with your good manners and everything. Makes sense?_

He really hoped Nico read that as him just searching for anyone able to ease his anxiety. What he definitely did not want Nico to understand was the fact that, just maybe, Percy needed _him_.

He wasn’t ready to tell Nico about his whole crush thing yet, and he surely didn’t want him to realize that before Percy would have the occasion to tell him. Because let’s face it, he could really be terrible at expressing himself in a not-straightforward and honest way.

Another message popped up.

_so you want me to back you up with your mom because you think she likes me and you’re scared of her?_

He hesitated. _I’m not scared of her man._

_what do you call not being able to talk to her by yourself?_

Percy let out a small sigh. _You didn’t answer the questionnnn._

He waited again, picking at the skin on his chin while avoiding the huge pile of clothes in front of him.

Nico replied after a couple more minutes.

_I mean, I could do that. there’d be no problem, if you say there’s a possibility of her saying yes. should I tell my dad to just let me stay at yours then?_

The corners of his mouth slowly turned up as he read.

Finally breathing in freely, he wrote back. _If he lets you go._

_I could make him paranoid about gas leaks. or people trying to get in. shouldn’t be that much of a problem if it’s the only way you can complete the tournament._

That stupid grin was still on his face. _Thank you, boo._

He put the phone back in his pocket and rolled up his sleeves. Now he _was_ determined to make his room look livable before Nico could see it.

Despite still being definitely unfocused, showing in how he kept jumping from task to task without completing one of them, he got better with some background music and finalized everything apart from the mess on his desk before dinner. He reluctantly ate what was on his plate since his brain had suddenly decided to only concentrate on his cleaning work, making him complete everything else before jumping onto his clean bed, content and satisfied.

Phone in hand yet again, he rushed to text Nico before he was off to the bathroom for a shower. _Your dad told you anything?_

When he came out of the tub, his phone vibrated from its place on the sink.

_just spoke to him. I’ll be there on Friday afternoon._

And Percy smiled, his hair dripping drops of water on his phone's screen.

He locket it and put it back down, looking at himself through the fogged mirror.

Three days. He would have seen Nico again in three days. And he had to make them count.

So, he tried working double hard. He studied for his Spanish and History tests and made sure to hide the bad Chemistry grade from his parents. He did, in the end, finish his English essay, and would have made a decent enough job if he only had handed that in sooner. He didn’t skip any swimming practice, to his teacher's (and his mom’s) delight. Of course, he tried to fit in everything he had previously brushed aside apart from his Statistics course, being the only one he was sure he could pass with ease. It was certainly less hard than Human Biology, that’s for sure. Having taken that as an elective just because it fit nicely with his AP Chemistry class hadn’t been a good idea. But, he tried hard to make it seem like he was finally listening to his parents, putting as much effort into studying as he did into gaming, despite them only seeing how much effort he was putting into just the former.

He locked himself in the school’s library for the following three days, finding it an extremely odd experience. Hearing silence all around him for hours on end was not only making him go crazy and noise-starved but was also making him lose his already shaky sense of time. That didn’t mean it didn’t help his concentration, though, which had actually been the most unusual part of it all. He still remembered his mom desperately trying to change his study habits and especially making him avoid his own room, considering its endless distractions, and how much he had hard-headedly refused for the sake of feeling “normal enough” to study alone and not in an empty and noise-free space. He was now regretting all the times he had refused to stay at school because of his tendency to compare himself to every single person in the room reading and writing faster than him.

It hadn’t been that bad after all, despite the times he fought the urge to rock his chair, put his feet on the table, and continuously cracking his knucles. He did catch himself humming songs under his breath a couple times because of the dirty looks two other students threw in his direction, but he did stop right after.

The days passed in a sort of haze, but the positive thing had been knowing he only had one job and sticking with that to avoid further consequences.

And then, Friday came.

He obviously didn’t stay over at school after the end of his period and raced home immediately after the first ring of the bell.

Closing the front door behind him in the empty house, his mouth pulled into a small smile, he ran to his relatively tidy room to throw himself on the bed and unlock his phone.

 _on our way_ , said Nico’s last message, and he rushed to reply. _Just got home. How much still?_

_around 30 min._

It was too long.

He pretended to be okay with it, though, since he definitely didn’t want Nico to know how much Percy had actually been waiting for that moment to come. It had probably been weeks, he thought, as he jumped up from his bed and turned on his computer. Blasting some music to cover up the anticipation he felt in his chest, he thought back about how he was going to see Nico’s face again.

And how he just wasn’t ready for it.

Being with him in the same room while unaware of his overwhelming crush for the younger boy had been hard enough. Nico living in his house for another day with a fully-aware version of him was another thing. There was no way Nico wasn’t going to notice something had changed. Annabeth used to tease him to death about how he just wasn’t able to keep his hands to himself.

Because, yes, he could be clingy. And he did enjoy attention. But, most of all, he needed touch. Which hurt to admit, knowing how much Nico just wasn’t like that.

He spent that half-hour sitting on the edge of his seat, repeatedly checking his hair in the mirror and questioning his choice in clothing multiple times before giving up and telling himself that Nico had definitely seen his banana-socks last time and hadn’t seemed to care.

His phone vibrated in his pocket as he was busy spinning around on his chair to the rhythm.

_what’s your last name again?_

He jumped up from his chair, typing fast. _So you’re here?_

 _answer the question_.

Percy turned the music off and smirked as he sprinted towards the door, putting on his shoes with one hand while he typed. _Starts with J ends with N if I’m not wrong._

 _you’re so annoying I swear_.

Sickering as he locked his keys to his jeans and closed the door behind him, he sprinted down the stairs. _Come onnnn not so difficult._

 _it must be really awful if you don’t want me to know_.

He kept on. _Nah, it would be a perfect lawyer’s name._

He locked his phone when he arrived at the front doors, seeing a younger, shorter boy standing in front of them, his back onto the wall beside the entrance.

Percy smiled brightly, stepping outside and poking his head out.

“It’s Jackson,” he stated, causing Nico to just barely jump from the surprise before recognizing him. He visibly relaxed, muttering a curse before letting out a sigh. Percy chuckled. “Where’s your dad?”

“He’s right there,” Nico muttered, annoyed, briefly pointing at the road behind him. The same 80s black Chevrolet was parked just at the opposite side of the road.

Percy raised his eyebrows. “What’s up with the hearse?”

“Very funny,” Nico replied, glancing back at the car. “You already know he’s weird.”

The younger boy walked towards the door then, putting his own phone and his hands back in his black hoodie’s pockets.

Since he looked like he was in a rush to get in, Percy gladly held the door open for him and followed Nico’s movements towards the stairs before glancing back to the car himself, noticing it be already gone.

Percy really didn’t care to think about Nico’s creepy-ass father considering his other parent-related concerns at the moment, so he just shrugged while closing the glass doors. Then, he followed the younger boy up towards his apartment.

If there was one positive side about Nico turning him down, it was to never be able to know his dad ever. Being the only silver lining he could think about, though, Percy clung to it until his mind managed to move on to other thoughts.

Like Nico’s silver hoop earrings he had never noticed before.

“Did you cut your hair?” Percy questioned while still walking up the stairs.

Nico kept on in front of him. “Just the bangs,” he replied. “Certain people called me emo and I didn’t like it.”

“Oh, come on,” Percy lamented, getting the reference. “I didn’t say I didn’t like them.”

Nico let out a chuckle, making Percy aware of its double meaning. “Yeah, well, trust me, I would’ve cut them either way.”

“Right,” Percy replied hesitantly as they stood at the front door.

He let them in, flipping the keys around his finger as he led Nico into his room, somewhat hopeful he would notice his efforts.

“It’s cleaner than last time,” Nico commented, briefly glancing around before placing his black-and-white backpack near the door.

Percy smirked, slumping down on his chair while still playing with his house keys. “You mean it was dirty before?”

Nico seemed to realize just then. “No, I mean…” he hesitated, and Percy snickered.

“Don't worry, I was kidding,” he dismissed him. “I listened to my mom when she told me it was a mess and spent a whole evening throwing stuff away and folding clothes.”

“You managed,” Nico concluded, looking around the room with his hands in his pockets. “I'm not that tidy either.”

“You kidding?” Percy blurted. “You don’t even have dust on the shelves.”

“So you actually checked?” Nico questioned, sitting down on the bed.

“What if I did?” Percy teased, earning a small smile from Nico.

“You’d have more serious problems than mine,” he replied, crossing his legs. “Which could be, considering you're scared of your mom.”

Percy turned the chair toward him, snorting. “I'm scared of her saying no. That’s different.”

Nico looked at him after a moment of reflection.

“Then we make sure she’ll say yes,” he shrugged.

Percy observed his confident look and delivered him a small, grateful smile.

He had no idea how, or why Nico seemed so sure he’d be able to convince his mom. But he trusted him. Somehow, he didn’t have any problems believing what Nico told him, ever. He had never doubted him, and he surely didn’t want to doubt him now.

“Great, ghost boy,” Percy concluded. He pointed at his computer. “Wanna show me how you do?”

Nico glanced at the computer, a tiny side-smile on his lips, and got up from his spot.

They ended up in a discussion about whether or not he should download Nico’s new favorite game, while also trying to understand how the Premier event would have worked while waiting for his parents to come home.

After a couple hours in which Percy had been convinced to download _Silent Hill II_ , finding out about his inability to say no to an excited Nico asking him to just “try it out”, he heard the sound of square-heeled shoes at the front door.

“Is that your mom?” Nico asked, voice low, briefly glancing at the door from Percy’s chair.

Percy mimicked him. “Yeah,” he confirmed, sighing and biting his lip. “You wanna do this now?”

Nico observed the screen in front of him and breathed in deeply.

“Sure,” he stated, shrugging and getting up.

Percy didn’t feel exactly comfortable at the thought of showing up in front of his mom with Nico beside him again, now that she obviously knew about his romantic feelings going on. Especially considering the worst-case scenario wasn’t even his mom stopping him from going; it was actually her painting Nico in a bad light for backing Percy up and trying to persuade her.

Despite that, he breathed in deeply and focused on walking out his door, hesitantly strolling towards the kitchen table where his mom sat, going through the mail.

Hearing them coming, she looked up. The corners of her mouth turned up on her previously serious face.

“Hi, honey,” she greeted, moving her head to the side to look at Nico behind him. “And hello, Nico. Was the trip alright?”

“Yes, thank you,” he replied, moving to Percy’s side.

He glanced at the younger boy, finding that polite smile on his lips yet again.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Percy felt Nico’s shoe discreetly hitting his ankle.

He blinked and looked at his mom again. “Uh…” he started, his heart beating fast. “Mom, can I talk to you about something?”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Sure, sweetie,” she pointed at the free spots after a moment. “Sit down if you want. What is it?”

They both did as told.

Percy started fidgeting with the hems of his shirt under the table.

“Uh, well… I was meaning to tell you this some, like, weeks ago or something, but I always forgot and…” he continued, hearing Nico let out a small sigh. “Well. You know I play a game, right? The one with the guns and the Greek stuff…”

She frowned, puzzled. “The one where you two met?”

He stopped for a moment, briefly glancing at Nico’s expression. Not noticing any hint of embarrassment or uncomfortableness, he kept going. “Yeah, that one. Anyway…” he kept on. “We are teammates now, and we kinda have just… won an online tournament?”

“We didn’t win,” Nico quickly corrected him. “We’re in the top ten best players of the North American area.”

Well, that actually was the coolest way to put it.

Percy tightened his lips when he saw his mom’s dumbfounded expression, her blue eyes bouncing between them both. “Oh, wow. That’s…”

“Yeah, that’s very cool,” Percy interrupted, eager to come to the point. “But that’s not really the point.”

Her brows furrowed again, glancing at them both without a word.

Nico took in a breath, diverting her attention from Percy instead. “We received an invitation to a live event in May. That would mean our team would compete with the other best teams in our region for a prize. But since we’re all under eighteen, we would each need an adult to accompany us. I’d have my father, but Percy…”

“I didn’t wanna ask dad,” Percy confessed, hoping to lure her a bit more on his side. “You know how he is. You were my first choice, but…” he stuttered, looking down at her hands on the table. “I was scared you’d say no, and I didn’t wanna risk it, so I waited until I was sure we could go to tell you.”

She was quiet, and Percy couldn’t really decrypt the look on her face. Her eyes were just focused on him, but the absence of a smile on her face worried him more than anything else.

He saw Nico nervously playing with his own bracelets under the table, and he found the slightest bit of comfort in that.

He heard her finally sigh, shifting on her chair. “Percy, that’s really wonderful to know, but…” she started. “In May? You’ll have your finals. You know you need to focus on studying. I wouldn’t have any problems going with you otherwise and I think you know that, too.”

“I know!” He exclaimed, trying to keep his voice low. “I know I gotta study for my SATs, but this is a one-time thing, and it’ll only last one day. I just wanna try something else for once instead of just studying all the time, y’know?”

She sighed, resigned. “I get that, honey, but studying should be your only duty at the moment. You cannot bring in more stuff and be confident to do well in everything you do. Isn’t it better to make one small sacrifice and think about where you’ll be, one year from now?”

He flattened his lips again, sighing.

So, there it was again. The expectation for him to morph into something he didn’t care about becoming. And, in all honesty, thinking about being in college a year from then didn’t give him any kind of remote satisfaction; it never did.

But thinking about competing worldwide in international arenas while having a side-job as whatever would allow him to spend time at the beach as much as possible? That sounded just right. It sounded like him. Having Nico still in the picture made it sound even more like a dream come true.

“Mom, please,” Percy begged her, pushing himself forward on the table. “I know I gotta do stuff, and I know I gotta study, and I will! Anne can help me and you and Paul can, too. I just need _something_ to keep me going on the side, y’know?” She opened her mouth to speak again, but he didn’t let her. “I don’t wanna spend a whole month in the library doing nothing but reading. Please…”

“Percy,” she interrupted him, commanding. “I get it. What I said before doesn’t change, but let me really think about it, first. And think hard about that, too, okay?”

“But…” he tried again before Nico could rapidly put his hand on his arm, silencing him.

Percy turned to look at him, who just nodded at his mom. “Yeah, we get it,” he stated, understanding. “I actually still have to think about it myself. I’ll have my own finals in a month, too.”

She looked at the younger boy to her right, her lips turning up in a thankful smile.

“We’ll talk about this later, then, alright?” She concluded, despite Percy was clearly disapproving of her decision. “Let me start prepping dinner first.”

Percy was about to retaliate yet again, but Nico’s hand tightened around his arm before he swiftly got up from his chair. “Thank you,” Nico stated, looking at her yet again. “Can we help with something?”

She stood up, too, briefly shaking her head. “That’s very kind of you, but don’t worry about it,” she looked at him. “I remember you liking chocolate?”

Percy glanced at Nico’s embarrassed expression. “Um… yeah?” He asked, unsure.

“There’ll be a surprise for you tonight, then,” she smiled, sunny, already stepping towards the fridge to probably check on some ingredients. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Nico was still staring at her, seemingly unsure about what to say. Percy hid a smile behind his lips before reluctantly getting up from his seat, defeated. “Alright…” he grumbled, already moving towards his room.

He instinctively reached for Nico’s wrist before stopping himself and opting for his shoulder to shake him from his faltering state.

After he did, the younger boy excused himself with a small nod and a muttered “Sure,” before following Percy toward the room.

Closing the door behind themselves yet again, he tried calming the burning disappointment in his chest with the thought that there could still be a possibility of her saying yes. It was just a matter of time before Percy could come up with something to persuade her with.

In the end, he knew Nico had avoided the situation from escalating, stopping him from going on. He could inadvertently be obnoxious sometimes, and that surely didn’t help any of his argument cases.

He dropped on his bed, laying down with a snort. Nico sat back on the chair instead, arms crossed on his chest and a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Well. We tried, I guess,” Percy sighed, staring at his ceiling.

“So, you haven't told her you don’t want to go to college?”

Percy blinked.

He stood up to scrutinize the other boy. “What?”

Nico looked at him, raising his eyebrows in a questioning look.

“Well…” Percy hesitated, a guilty expression on his face. “I didn’t, but that's really not my decision… I guess.”

“Of course she wants you to go to college if she thinks that's what you want,” Nico scoffed, turning to look at the computer’s screen. “She won't change her mind until you tell her.”

Percy lowered his gaze, falling back down on the mattress.

He went back to staring at his ceiling in silence. Everything he could have said would have just ended up proving Nico's point, in the end.

“So, what do you suggest I do?” He pondered. “I can’t just tell her I don’t give a shit about college and expect her to be okay with that.”

Nico hummed, shifting audibly in his chair. “You're not supposed to do anything. Mine was just a suggestion.”

Percy chuckled. “Yeah. Right,” he snorted, wanting to move on from that conversation. It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the responsibility he had on his own future choices. And, consequently, on his own happiness. “How ‘bout a match?”

He heard Nico turn the chair towards the computer before talking. “Fine,” he agreed. “Consider this training.”

Percy jumped up from his bed, lips tight before he took Nico's place on the chair.

He started playing under Nico's attentive eye for definitely more than a couple matches, grateful another pair of eyes were present to scan the screen from behind him. They were both attentively examining the game’s environment for any sign of movement, while Nico took pride in reminding him when to use small grenades along with bettering his skills in virtual archery.

Percy was surprisingly catching on with ease. But the closer he got to the end of every match, the more Nico felt allowed to become demanding.

“Don’t be an idiot and go _hide_ , Percy,” he scolded him when still battling for second and first place. “Don’t even _try_ to play hero just because he’s on your team. You can’t allow yourself to be good all the time.”

“Jeez, that was cruel,” Percy teased, eyes still glued to the screen. “You’d leave me there to die too, then?”

“That’s really not what you should be thinking,” Nico argued, frustrated. He became attentive soon after. “The window to the right.”

Percy’s reply died in his throat as he focused on moving over from behind a huge column, expertly aiming at the small head he could see in the distance.

His and the other guy’s team were dead by then since Nico had forced him to leave his second teammate outside the ring to die.

He had hit his enemy, but the guy was not down just yet. Another couple of bullets should have done the job, but he was definitely at a disadvantage in regards to firing range and precision. The other had a sniper gun, and Percy could only alternate between an energy ammo gun and a shotgun.

“Stay where you are. Make sure to keep him outside the ring,” Nico advised him. It did sound more like an order than a suggestion, though. And Percy didn’t like orders. “Stop there and look – what the _fuck_ are you doing?!”

“I’m doing that guy a favor killing him nice and fast,” he replied, voice low and a smirk creeping on his face as he opted for sprinting towards the block, swaying right and left to avoid the bullets.

Nico let out a huge sigh of frustration in return. “I can’t believe you’re this stupid and you still manage to be on my team.”

“Believe it now, ghostie,” he teased back, entering the building and heading towards its broken wooden stairs.

He waited at the bottom for his enemy to come check on him and, just as the other leaned a bit more towards the opening in the floor, he fired away. The other retreated immediately, giving Percy time to back down, quickly patch himself up, and reload his gun. The ring began closing around them, making them both quickly lose health points. He quickly aimed up and allowed himself to wait again. His impatience won, though, and he ran up the stairs when he couldn't take it anymore. Being met with a series of bullets from his side, he promptly responded with a single streak of bullets from his shotgun.

At that, his enemy fell to the ground and Percy’s team was being declared champion of the match; the bright, golden banner covering nearly half of his screen.

“Fuck yeah, baby!” Percy rejoiced, right as Nico muttered a frustrated “I can't believe this,” before turning towards the door, crossing his arms.

Percy let out a cheerful laugh before spinning around on the chair and towards Nico. He closed their distance before crossing his arms imitating him and looking at the younger boy with a sly smile.

He was so genuinely pleased with himself and his could-have-been suicide mission that he couldn’t believe Nico not being proud of him. It really was things like these that made him adore shooter RPGs.

As the final shivers ran through him, he reluctantly hoped they would calm down soon, because he definitely didn’t wish for any surprises in his pants.

“Whaddya think, boo?” Percy asked, looking at the other’s back up and down.

Nico was just facing the door, still visibly pissed at him. “I think I don’t even know why I’m still here since you keep on making everything I tell you fucking useless,” he spat, turning around to face him with an annoyed expression. He inquisitively pointed at the screen. “What was the need of that?”

“I understand you’re not the guy who likes risk, but a pinch of it could spice up your game if you just tried,” he insisted, not really bothered by the other’s tone. “I guarantee you.”

Percy thought he had made clear he disliked authoritarian people. He could accept suggestions, but orders were not something people could expect him to follow. He had to do his own thing, and he knew Nico was exactly like that, too. That was precisely why he just couldn’t get angry at him; not in that situation.

Nico didn’t think so, though, since he kept going. “If you think risk will make us win you belong with the nine-year-olds in the beginner server.”

“Except I don’t, since I just killed a two-hundred-something guy and won,” he calmly retaliated, shrugging.

Nico groaned in annoyance at the comment. “It’s a-hundred-and-fifty, but whatever,” he continued, strolling towards the bed, arms still crossed on his chest. “You know, fine,” he concluded, taking out his phone from his pocket. “You keep getting yourself killed. I don't care. I'll just use you as bait from now on.”

Percy glanced at him, his eyebrows raising in surprise at first.

He knew Nico had always been using his tendency to dive in head-first, but he honestly didn’t want to think of it that way. It was more a matter of Nico having found what he was good at and letting him do it. It was pretty normal for a team to do that, in the end.

“Oh, come on man, why are you even mad? I won, didn’t I?” Percy pushed his chair closer to the bed to stop in front of him.

“You do stuff like that when we’re competing and I’m the first one leaving you behind,” Nico replied dryly, a hint of anger in his eyes when he raised his gaze towards the older boy.

An uncomfortable and out-of-place realization washed through him as he held the other’s serious stare.

Nico was cuter than he remembered. Like, stupidly cute; messy hair contouring his face, black eyebrows a bit knit down, the way he was staring at him a bit menacingly. Percy had never noticed his lashes being so long. Had they always been this long or had they grown from when they had last met?

Could eyelashes even grow longer?

“Yeah,” he mindlessly replied. Realizing that answer didn’t make sense, he quickly shook his head to collect himself. “I mean, fine. If you want to lose that badly, go ahead.”

He was definitely feeling weird, now.

He was supposed to be in an argument with him. Proving his point would have been his first priority, but getting even a tiny bit angry at the other seemed impossible. He didn’t _want_ to be mad at him, just like he was really trying to avoid Nico being angry at him. Discussions had never felt as uncomfortable and as wrong as they were sounding then.

The younger boy just eye-rolled, standing up and walking the few steps to close their distance while trying (and honestly, managing) to look threatening.

“I’m serious, Percy,” Nico intimated, voice dropping lower and eyes piercing. “I won’t lose just because you like making dumb decisions and still believe you can get away with them. I won't put up with that.”

Percy refused to drop his gaze, challenging the other in an unironic staring contest.

But his thoughts ended up on the other’s extremely dark irises, trying to spot the hint of a pupil there somewhere. And his mind began wandering again.

He had read somewhere on the Internet that your pupils go wide when your eyes see something they enjoy, or something like that. If that were the case, he thought, he would have been willing to give up his skateboard to get a glimpse of their size inside Nico’s eyes. He was just so curious to understand if it was just him to feel those kinds of hard and hot feelings in his stomach when he happened to be this close to the younger boy.

That was the first time in his life he cursed his clear green eyes for being so transparent; now he really wished he had taken on his grandma’s.

Also, he would have genuinely liked for Nico to stare in his eyes a bit longer, because he was liking the feeling of being stared at. Even more considering how hard Nico’s stare was to catch.

It didn’t really matter that the expression of the boy in front of him wasn't exactly loving; the fact he was there, head lowered to meet Percy’s eyes, and so goddamn close, made him reluctant to even argue back.

Nico straightened up then, apparently satisfied with his speech. “Another match,” he commanded, looking towards the screen. “Then we’re going to have a food break or something.”

If Nico did notice what Percy could just imagine were his eyes at that moment, he didn’t let it show.

Except, after a few seconds, Percy saw Nico’s face dyeing a light pink, his arms coming closer to his chest and squeezing one of them in an almost subtle gesture.

Almost, because Percy noticed, and it just messed with his head so much that his thoughts started to race faster.

And he really shouldn’t have been thinking that, but a warm feeling spread through him when he realized he couldn’t stop staring and the other’s cheeks despite trying to not make it look weird. And now he couldn’t stop. Nico was blushing right in front of him and it didn’t matter how much he had been angry just a few seconds before, or how Percy felt about not wanting to let it show just yet.

Because Nico probably did notice already.

And, maybe, he was embarrassed by Percy apparently giving him dreamy eyes, and that was why he was blushing and trying hard to divert the topic.

He wasn’t backing up, though. He wasn’t trying to escape the situation.

Percy wondered why, trying to discard what his feelings were begging at him to do. He didn’t _want_ to let it show, but he just did.

Also, he was supposed to be mad at Nico, he reminded himself when getting up from his chair, still gazing at the other’s face.

Nico was now looking at him, and the blush on his face became even more evident when Percy stood in front of him, his head a bit tilted down to look at the shorter boy.

“What are you…” Nico started, frowning, but Percy cupped his face with one hand before leaning in towards his lips.

He looked as Nico’s eyes grew wider the closer he got to his face, flinching but still unmovable.

Percy took that as his chance to say “fuck it” to everything else outside of that room right that second. He promptly closed their distance in a second, connecting his lips with the other’s leaving a soft, gentle kiss on them, closing his eyes while he did so.

He felt Nico’s throat constrict, inhaling sharply and holding in his breath.

And Percy just stayed like that, extremely close to Nico’s lips but not touching; until he felt the other slowly exhale, his light breath caressing his cheek and sending small shivers down his neck.

Percy enjoyed that a bit too much. And just like when, every year, he would start eating his birthday cake before midnight ending up devouring half of it in ten minutes, he felt he needed more.

His heartbeat quickened as he placed his lips on Nico’s again, this time languidly, licking the younger boy’s lips with just the tip of his tongue. He smelled like musk and that black pepper soap he knew he had in his bathroom in New Jersey.

When Nico finally reciprocated the kiss, slightly parting his lips just when Percy’s tongue found them.

He wasn’t giving in just yet, though, and that deliciously frustrated him.

So, Percy worked. He kissed him again, not stopping this time.

He heard Nico’s breath catch in his throat again and, soon, his own hands found both sides of Nico’s face while their mouths were still connected and Percy was finally allowed to taste the Red Bull they had both drank a few hours before. He kissed Nico deeply, hearing the other’s breath hesitate and then release itself on Percy’s lips and nose. The small gasp he managed to pull out the younger boy when he let out a breathy, brief moan of approval felt like the biggest reward of the entire year.

Then, his ears picked up the sound of keys clinking and his mom's voice greeting Paul coming home, and he felt Nico retreat immediately.

As if he was burned, he promptly removed Percy’s hands from his face, catching his breath before briefly looking at him in disbelief.

His dark eyes scrutinized him in silence for a moment.

His face was of one of the most beautiful shades of red Percy had ever seen.

His own chest filled with frustration though as he looked, lost, at Nico speeding towards the door, opening it a bit jerkily before walking out. His light footsteps headed towards the end of the corridor.

Percy cursed at himself for his stupid, impulsive decisions and at Paul for the absolutely awful timing while dropping in his chair again, silently staring at the lowered curtain right behind his desk.

He was definitely not used to romantic situations anymore. He hadn’t even been the one kissing Annabeth the first time, for Christ’s sake.

He had no idea how things like these even worked. Not when it came to people for whom he felt something more than a superficial physical attraction.

He covered his face with both hands, and groaned. Then, he felt the panic kick in.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself, letting out a second groan.

He tried finding a way to stop Nico’s face from replaying in his head, but nothing really seemed to divert his attention from that image. He hesitantly cupped his cheeks to check for excessive warmth while he tried listening to the quiet conversation going on in the kitchen.

He didn’t want to wait in there, alone. But he also really didn’t want to risk Nico freaking out, alone; Percy just knew he had locked himself in the bathroom. He had heard the lock click from his room, the door still left ajar.

He turned around to look at the entrance, breathing in.

Nico hated unnecessary attention. He was also fully aware of his need to be alone when anxiety or strong feelings were involved. Therefore, he decided that playing it cool would have somehow been the best move, in this case.

No one really needed to know. He could have played it off as some kind of fit, or whatever else. There surely was something he could make up to patch up his own mess.

“It’s okay,” he whispered to himself, closing the distance between himself and the door.

Nevermind the fact he felt like his whole brain was just hovering somewhere outside his body as he walked towards the kitchen.

“Hey there, champ,” Paul greeted him. Percy forgot to answer. “Everything okay at school?”

“Sure,” he finally replied, avoiding his and his mom’s gaze. He forced a small smile.

He started mindlessly setting the table without anyone asking just because he needed something to stop his hands from nervously fidgeting with his shirt or his necklace. He was thankful his mom and Paul had already gone back to their previous conversation, because he surely wouldn’t have been able to keep up one himself.

It took him around five minutes to set everything up without forgetting or messing up something but, when he was finally finished, he heard the bathroom door unlock.

He briefly glanced at it as it opened, swiftly lowering his head and feeling his cheeks heat up yet again. Moving to the living room’s sofa as quickly and casually as possible, he kept his eyes on the TV screen. Common sense finally took over in his mind as he asked himself what the heck was he even doing.

Trying to hide in his own house? He could be so obvious sometimes, it was useless hoping his mom wouldn’t notice. Or even Paul, for Christ’s sake, he thought, running his hands on his face and rubbing his eyes. Gosh, he really didn’t want Paul to know. His mom was embarrassing enough.

He had noticed how she looked at them both. Sly enough to not let Nico notice, but just clear enough to let Percy know. That was the first time he hoped for Nico’s usual impassive masks to help the situation.

“Oh, hello, Nico!” Greeted Paul’s voice, making Percy’s stomach drop. “You’re finally back?”

“My father’s in town to meet with some clients,” Nico’s voice replied, stoic as usual.

Percy could bet he was the only one noticing his tone being flatter than usual.

He made no effort to get up and join them, though. His ass could as well be glued to the sofa.

“Percy?” His mom called above Paul’s and Nico’s exchange. “Could you help me with this?”

He didn’t reply.

Taking in a deep breath to calm himself down and slowly getting up, he cursed himself yet again to have chosen the worst moment of all to confess his crush. He reluctantly walked into the kitchen, careful to avoid Nico’s eyes, before helping his mom filling up the plates and serve dinner.

Seeing Nico sitting down, he did the same without uttering a word and started eating the chicken in front of him. The uncomfortable feeling in his guts didn’t leave him even as he gulped down the first piece, and he couldn’t help but glance at Nico’s hand beside his, careful not to let them brush against each other.

He didn’t really talk for the whole duration of the dinner. At least, not until his mom started spoke first.

“Nico, why don’t you stay until tomorrow morning?” She proposed, making Percy freeze in his spot. “It would spare you the trip back home. Didn’t you just say your dad will be back in Manhattan tomorrow afternoon?”

Percy listened to the silence that had fallen at the table. “Uh…” Nico stuttered before Percy finally rose his head from his own plate.

“Mom, the man probably has plans already,” he argued, and it cost him more strength than he imagined. Mentioning Nico's dad didn’t ever fail to make Percy uneasy. It was certainly better than mentioning his mom, though.

“No, it’s okay,” Nico stated, interrupting him. Percy finally turned his head towards him in surprise. “I could ask him,” the younger boy continued. He briefly glanced at Percy, diverting his gaze almost immediately before turning back to look at his mom. “If you want.”

“That would be great,” his mom replied with a happy smile, after which Paul imitated her. “Unless you didn’t have plans already, honey?”

Percy looked at her, still baffled by the conversation. He felt his cheeks heat up yet again before replying. “No, I…” he stuttered, hopeful. “It would actually be great,” he concluded, as neutral as possible, looking over at Nico again.

At that, the other calmly extracted his phone from his pocket, excusing himself to make the call from the living room. Percy was still baffled as he followed Nico’s back with his eyes.

Turning back to his mom when he heard Nico starting a conversation in Italian with his dad, she gazed back at him, raising her eyebrows in a questioning look. Paul looked back between the two, evidently puzzled.

Percy didn’t utter another word. He just awkwardly smiled at her, getting up from his seat to remove his and Nico’s plate from the table and start clearing the table. He didn't comment about Nico's various sighs and groans thrown here and there in the conversation, since he had expected to hear them in the first place.

While he was busy rinsing the plates, he heard the final “bye" of the conversation before Nico walked back again into the kitchen.

“I can stay,” he announced, making Percy turn around for a glance. Nico met his eyes briefly before sitting back down with his phone in his pocket.

“That's great to hear, dear,” his mom chimed, getting up herself. “Percy, you want to take care of your room?”

He smiled a little to himself. “No prob,” he concluded, mindlessly drying his hands on his pants and walking towards his bedroom.

Smile still plastered to his face, his thoughts kept racing as he arranged the bed.

One thought, though, seemed to linger more than all the others, and that was the fact that Nico had wanted to stay. Beyond the fact that he didn’t seem disgusted with, or even mad, at him anymore, Percy was baffled he had actually made an effort to talk his dad into letting him stay.

And that had to mean something positive, right?

All the worst-case scenarios had just been disconfirmed, and that was probably why he felt warm anticipation building up inside. He wasn't even expecting anything by that point; he honestly just didn’t want to think about anything else apart from how he could thank Nico for having had the patience to forgive that moment of impulsiveness he was now inevitably starting to regret.

As Nico appeared on the door, Percy turned around to look at him.

He gave him a side-smile. “Your dad's being an asshole?”

Nico’s eyebrows raised a little before he crossed his arms and averted his gaze yet again. “Kind of. He's always a jerk."

Percy hummed, looking around.

Then he realized, stopping in his tracks. “Uh…” he hesitated, looking at Nico yet again. “You need… something? To sleep in?”

Nico seemed to realize the same thing only a second later. He shifted in his place, looking around, and then at his backpack. “Um…” he pondered, fidgeting uncomfortably with his bracelets. “You got something?”

Percy turned his head towards his wardrobe, holding back a smile and the honeyed feeling already bubbling up in his chest. “Got a whole closet for you, ghostie,” he replied, opening his drawers. “Treat yourself.”

“Thanks,” Nico muttered before Percy was off to the living room to make his own bed.

He shook his head slightly before chuckling lowly at his own cheesiness, and forced himself to stop thinking about Nico borrowing his clothes as something romantic.

Before he got himself into bed a few hours later, though, he waited for his parents to say goodnight first. Which took a while, since his mom insisted on Nico trying her chocolate cookies before going to bed, just in case she would have tried baking them again the next morning. Then, after that, and after his mom and Paul excusing themselves to get to their room and watch some TV, it was Percy’s turn to lay down on the sofa without bothering to ask Nico if he would have liked to drop in his bed to sleep instead of watching a movie first.

When he heard Nico getting ready for bed in the bathroom that he realized there was no way he was going to fall asleep soon. Staring at the living room’s ceiling on which the changing light of the TV reflected, dyeing it a faint white, he finally paid attention to his thoughts.

He really wanted to talk about what happened; in the end, it was way better than him going crazy with the thought that Nico wouldn’t have wanted to be with him again in the same house. He knew he couldn’t just bring up the subject, though.

Wishing for Nico to start first, maybe just hinting at the fact so that Percy could start with his questions and, possibly, apologies, wasn’t helping. And to be honest, he still didn’t know what got to him. Kissing people out of the blue was never a good idea; he had learned his lesson many times. Especially in his relationship with Annabeth.

And, about her, why hadn’t he summed her up into the equation? Why wasn’t his sense of guilt coming up even then when he was actively thinking about it?

Sure, they had kind of broken up. He was supposed to be and feel single. Despite that, he was pretty sure people weren’t supposed to move from one love interest to the next that easily. So, supposedly, he shouldn’t have been thinking about Nico and him being in the same house, at night, his parents probably about to fall asleep by then, with both of them awake in their own comfortable beds.

But he was, in fact, thinking about that. And that shouldn’t have felt so irresistible, so good to pretend it could be real.

Just like it shouldn’t have been so good to think back at Nico’s lips and how much he would have liked to kiss him again, and again, and again if given the chance.

Shit, he thought. He was definitely in too deep.

He sighed quietly, extracting his phone from his sweatpants’ pockets, swiftly opening his and Nico’s chat. _You there?_

He stared at the screen for a few minutes, switching his focus between that and whatever shitty 90s romantic comedy was playing on TV.

Until Nico’s reply finally popped up on the screen.

_I’m literally next door, wdym?_

Well, he was right. He took another deep breath to chase away the tension in his shoulders. _Fair enough_.

Nico sent him a question mark soon after.

He rushed to reply. _I’m sorry_.

Nothing else would come out, though, since he froze on the spot, waiting for an answer.

_about what, Percy? I don’t get it._

Percy sighed heavily, glancing at the direction of the corridor. He hesitated again before starting to type.

Christ, he was such a coward. _About before. Don’t know what got to me. Sorry again_.

He really hoped Nico would get the hint, because by this point he was just too afraid of mentioning the fact that they had actually kissed. Out loud. Or even written down. He still wasn’t ready to process the situation.

His prayers seemed to be answered, because Nico waited a moment before texting back, probably processing what Percy had put between the lines. Probably also remembering it, visualizing.

_it’s okay. no big deal._

That sent a spark of frustration through him. Another one of Nico’s typical meaningless replies. _How’s that okay man?_ He wrote, before texting again. _There are basic rules for consent and I didn’t really respect any of them. That’s kind of not okay if you ask me._

_I’m telling you I don’t mind it._

He frowned, puzzled. _You don’t mind it?_

_yeah. I mean, I didn’t say no when I could have._

_I’m sorry man but I’m getting conflicting messages here and I just want to make sure I get what u r saying._ Percy questioned again.

He didn’t even know what he was trying to do anymore; if he was trying to downplay the situation or pressing Nico into saying more because he would have _excessively_ liked to know they had both enjoyed the accident, or not. Which was a pretty important point to clear up, in his opinion.

_idk what more you want me to say, Percy._

_Well I kinda need to know if you didn’t like it or if you did_

_why do you need to know?_

Percy sat up quickly, running a hand through his hair and letting out another sigh. _To know if I can do it again? Or not? Fuck man is it really that difficult?_

For the whole annoyingly long minute the chat stayed still, Percy had the time to panic.

Maybe he had been rude. Maybe Nico didn’t know how to say no to him. Fuck, that really wasn’t as easy as he expected it to be. _Actually nvm, I get it. It’s okay you don’t have to say anything_

_one sec._

Percy stared at the last message, and lifted his gaze towards the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing again.

After that, he heard delicate steps travel closer to the kitchen and the living room.

Nico stood at the entrance of the living room, crossing his half-covered arms on his chest. Percy couldn’t stop his eyes from traveling up and down his body, just like he wasn’t able to stop his breath from catching in his throat for a second or two when he recognized his old green graphic shirt and his even older grey sweat shorts on him.

And he was looking at him. An annoyed expression on his face, yes, but, at least, they had made eye contact for more than two seconds.

After that, Nico’s gaze turned to the TV. “So…” the younger boy started, making Percy finally quit staring. “You want me to tell you if you can do it again?”

Percy forced his gaze to fix on the TV like the chicken he was. “Yeah. I mean, that’s what consent is…”

“So what if I say you can?”

Percy briefly glanced at him, falling silent for a moment. “I guess…” he tightened his lips. “I guess I will,” he replied, defeated and pathetic. “Not right now, but, y’know. I mean, the thought crossed my mind a few times, and…”

And, Nico was probably waiting for him to finish.

But he was not going to.

Everything he could have used to complete that sentence would have just sounded creepy as hell. ‘I just thought I could do it because you like guys’ would have sounded way horrible, even if it did have a bit of truth in itself. He obviously wouldn’t have thought about it, had he known for a fact that Nico was straight; just like he wouldn’t ever try to kiss one of his lesbian friends.

But it was much more than that.

It was the fact that he would worry about Nico when he was not answering his texts, or that he had come all the way to his house basically fathering him just to be with him for a couple more days because he enjoyed being around him that much. It was those times Percy had been allowed to wrap his arm around his shoulders and how he had longed for that contact for too many weeks now, by his own very poor standards. When he was with Annabeth, he could lay on her all day and she would never complain once, except maybe when he snored.

With Nico, instead, he felt like he had to ask for permission before doing anything that would involve intimacy on some level. He was a much physical person, and that lack of human heat was driving him crazy. Which would usually only happen if he really liked the person. So, he really suspected he liked Nico a lot more than he had wanted to admit.

He finally heard movement from Nico’s side of the room, so he turned to see.

The younger boy sat beside him on the sofa, crossing his legs on the cushions and laying back while fidgeting with his hands. He lowered his gaze to inspect his fingers, like there was anything to inspect for.

Then, he shrugged lightly.

“I told you. I don’t mind,” Nico finally stated.

Percy stared at the younger boy’s face.

He took in every detail still illuminated by the faint light from the TV. His long, black lashes, thick brows, and the hint of some freckles over his cheeks and nose. Percy had probably inadvertently spent time staring at Nico’s mouth, because he didn’t find anything new there. Same thin, rosy lips, and same straight, elegantly pointed nose. And there were so many details he could lose himself into; and despite noticing himself almost glaring at the other’s face, he decided he didn’t want to stop.

So, he just smiled.

Probably at himself, for not yet being able to realize Nico had confessed to him that he didn’t mind kissing, once in a while. Whatever that meant for Percy and his self-esteem and all those complex stuff he didn’t care, because Nico had just made him understand he kinda liked him. Not officially, not explicitly, but clear enough for the older boy to stop fantasizing about the other being disgusted by the thought of Percy crushing on him.

Nico briefly glanced at him then, before turning his gaze in front of him.

And he smirked. A tiny, discrete, amused smile that didn’t really mean to tease. And Percy knew.

He smiled back a bit euphorically, chuckling lowly, and got closer to the younger boy before wrapping an arm around his shoulders and completely closing the distance between them.

Nico didn’t push back even when Percy started mindlessly playing with his hair, head laying back on the backrest of the sofa and legs on the coffee table in front of him.

They stayed still then, and he possibly watched Nico fall asleep while maybe trying to sleep himself in the process. All while thinking about how he still wanted more.

And how he would figure out a way to get it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i'm way late, yes it's exactly 4am again, i can't even with this and there are probably some things i still need to review but here you hare i genuinely hope you'll like this bridge chapter (4 more to go!! wooho!!)
> 
> ALSO COMPLETELY FORGOT: tw for (can i say light?) homophobia in the middle of the chapter. if you don't want to read that, jump the entirety of the skatepark scene!!

When Percy woke up, the sun was illuminating the living room from the half-drawn blinds and the house was quiet. Not yet wanting to open his eyes, he snuggled in the warmth and the comfortableness his last dream had left him with, despite not even remembering the dream per se.

Slowly and lazily lifting his eyelids, frowning because of the sun rays hitting his face, he focused on the TV screen in front of him. It had been turned off, despite him not remembering doing so. Which lead his thoughts back at Nico.

There were no signs of the other boy on the sofa, which kept him slightly disappointed. He kept his eyes open to scan the room, reluctant to get up. He swiftly took hold of his phone to check on the time.

9AM wasn't that that late at all, he thought. His mom was probably going to wake up soon, though.

He checked on his notifications as a habit before reluctantly lifting his blanket to shuffle towards the bathroom. As he yawned and stretched his arms and back, still a bit sore from whatever position he had fallen asleep in, the images popping up in his brain made him mindlessly smile to himself.

Feeling euphoric wasn't something he had been exactly used to, lately. He certainly wasn’t used to the new shades of color the world seemed to have taken, where even the most elementary things like washing his hands after having peed felt so much lighter. He quickly splashed his face with cold water before brushing his teeth, listening to the unfamiliar silence around him.

Nico was probably still sleeping, he thought, looking at his own face in the mirror. And actually, Percy had just found out that one of his favorite activities was watching him sleep. Which sounded way creepier than it should have been, when it was really _listening_ to Nico sleep that was so enjoyable; he had never found the sound of another person breathing so calming in his life and, if it wouldn’t have been for Nico avoiding falling asleep on Percy, he surely would have had the occasion to enjoy it even more.

Not that he was mad about it, at all. Because, despite that, Percy had still caught himself observing the younger boy sleeping. Thanks to that, he found out that Nico actually had double-hole earrings on probably both ears. Also, his side-bangs tended to curl up near his ears, and his hair was definitely less messy than it looked. They only tended to look rough when they weren’t like all short, layered hair do. Apart from that, he had found a few moles scattered around Nico's cheeks and neck and had added that to the list of details he would have needed to actively look for from that moment on.

He turned around, looking at the corridor just outside the bathroom. Extracting his phone from his pocket, he walked back towards the living room.

He wrote in his and Nico’s chat out of habit. _You awake?_

Then, he realized he was hungry. Changing his itinerary to walk into the kitchen, he prepped himself some peanut butter and jam toasts instead of gulping down the chocolate chip cookies left from the night before. He didn’t need to cheat on his diet even more than he was already doing.

His phone chimed quietly from the table, and he got hold of it to read the message. _did you almost break a dish or what?_

He looked back at the glass he had pushed inside the sink by mistake a minute earlier and made a face.

He quickly wrote back, sitting down at the kitchen table. _Kinda. Whoops._

_well now I’m awake._

Percy smiled awkwardly to himself, mentally cursing his clumsiness. _Sorry. I got trouble keeping it down when I’m hungry._

_it’s okay I don’t mind. I slept kinda decently anyway._

_Great to hear boo_ , he replied.

He had to actively resist the urge to bring Nico something to eat, considering it still felt way too early to do something like that unannounced. Annabeth had surely shown greater interest for romantic stuff compared to Nico, and Percy sure as hell didn’t care to push anything onto him anyway. The shakiness of the situation was making him too nervous to make any more steps by this point.

A smile escaped from his lips as he took another bite of the toast in his hand, and he swiftly locked his phone when he heard his own bedroom door opening.

He turned around to gaze at Nico shuffling out the room, running a hand through his hair to remove it from his eyes. Percy’s gaze glued to him as the younger boy lazily walked towards the kitchen, still getting used to the light, until he forced himself to avert his gaze back to his plate.

“Mornin’,” he casually greeted. “You hungry?”

Nico shrugged, sitting down on the chair in front of him and rubbing his eye. “Not really,” he replied, voice hoarse. “You got coffee?”

Percy eyed him again, munching on a mouthful of bread. “Sure,” he stated, readily getting up from his chair.

Nico observed him get up to grab a mug and some coffee pods from the cupboard. As Percy started getting closer to the coffee machine, he found Nico beside him.

Percy looked down at the other’s hand extending towards the pods, questioning.

“I can do it,” the other stated, lowering his gaze to the coffee machine.

Percy observed him, uncertain. He frowned slightly. “What, you like it a certain way or…?”

Nico rose his gaze towards him. “Kind of,” he casually replied. “You got sugar?”

Percy shrugged then, handing him the pod.

Then, he delivered him an amused side-smile. “You know,” he started, opening the cupboard yet again. “You look like a bitter-coffee kind of guy.”

He heard Nico huff out a laugh. “Well, you look like you pour mayonnaise on pizza,” he teased. “Go figure.”

“And what does _that_ mean?” Percy inquired as he closed the cabinet’s door.

“Nothing. Just saying,” was Nico’s answer as Percy handed him the sugar cup, a smirk hinting the other’s his face. “I think you’re mistaking me for that MySpace-emo kid you talked about.”

Percy chuckled, and he couldn’t help the fondness blossoming in his chest.

“I don’t really mind that guy. You’re both pretty cool,” he admitted.

Nico glanced at him again for a moment, seemingly taken aback by that reply. Then, a tiny side-smile appeared on his lips as he went back to making his own coffee. “I don’t actually mind mayonnaise on pepperoni pizza, either.”

Percy’s lips naturally turned up even more at the comment, and he let himself place a brief, affectionate kiss to the side of Nico’s head, briefly ruffling up his hair. When Nico didn’t groan of discontent and actually leaned into the touch, Percy sat back down at the table holding back a content grin, checking the box of head kisses in his things-Nico-enjoys mental checklist.

As Nico finished up, he sat down beside Percy at the table, which made the older boy more excited than he should have been. But he couldn’t do anything about it; Nico had definitely never acted like this. He had already smiled three times from when he had entered the kitchen, which looked like one of Percy’s most valuable accomplishments of the last few days.

Even when Nico took out his phone and sipped on his coffee, Percy didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. He was so used to being quiet around Nico that it didn’t bother him one bit, and he loved it. Just like he adored Nico suddenly moving closer to show him the tournament rules he knew Percy still couldn’t wrap his head around.

And when Percy casually held up the phone touching Nico’s hand, the other didn’t move. On the contrary, he seemed to not even notice, and Percy had to remind himself to focus back on what Nico was saying when he realized they had never touched hands so naturally.

If his mom and Paul hadn’t woken up shortly after, Percy could bet he would have stayed in that same position for hours. All because he was too scared to move and not be able to touch Nico again.

Hearing their two voices come from the corridor, both of them turned their gaze towards the interruption and instinctively moved away from each other. Percy was still puzzled by his instinct to pull back so suddenly and quickly from Nico like he was afraid of being seen when his mom first entered the kitchen in her pj’s.

“Good mornin', boys,” she greeted softly, evidently still raw from sleep.

Paul was already dressed up instead like the morning person he was. “Mornin'!” He greeted, smiling, and directing himself towards the fridge.

Percy greeted them both back discretely, and Nico did the same. As usual, his mom asked him if he had slept well, and her expression lightened up a bit when he heard Nico's positive and polite reply. A weight lifted off Percy’s shoulders when both didn’t seem to notice, or mind, the fact that Nico was still wearing his old clothes.

Soon after, Paul announced he was going out to get groceries, and his mom directed herself to the bathroom to take a shower, leaving them alone again at the kitchen table.

Surrounded by silence yet again, Percy opened his mouth to speak before Nico preceded him.

“So…” the younger boy spoke, looking at the empty coffee mug in front of him. “You mean to tell her or what?”

Percy pressed his lips together and observed the slightly chipped edge of the table. He scratched at it mindlessly before replying. “You mean… the college thing, right?”

Nico shrugged lightly. “Kinda. I also meant the fact that you're definitely coming to the tournament with us.”

Percy turned his head to look at him, dubious. “Well, I mean…” he tried. “It's not like I have a choice if she says no, right? If she's not gonna do it, I can't go, and if I can't go…”

Nico scoffed, lowly. “You're not getting the point, Percy.”

Percy frowned, cutting himself off. “And what's that?”

“Listen,” Nico mentioned, glancing at him and scrutinizing. He lowered his voice. “What's the point of not going if you won’t put all your effort into your finals, anyway?” Nico argued, making Percy fall silent. “Like, let's say she doesn’t want you to go. You still got your dad, right? And if not him, there'll be someone else for sure. And if she says you need to focus on your studies, that's because she thinks you’re still considering which college to go to, which isn’t actually true. So, what's the point?”

Percy went still. Conflicted feelings of worry and the burning acknowledgment that Nico did, actually, have a point arose in his gut. It didn’t matter how wrong it still felt to go against his mom’s expectations, when it didn’t make sense to pretend he was someone he was never meant to be in the first place.

But, it still sounded like too much. He couldn’t risk it now, not when there was so much at stake. The daunting and familiar feeling of having to choose between two options, and those being making Nico or _his goddamn mom_ happy, was making him feel panicky all over again. He tried covering it up in front of the younger boy, though, because exposing himself for the coward he was felt too embarrassing still.

And Nico was right, in the end. There was no real question about it.

“Yeah, I guess…” Percy replied, after a few moments of silence. He let out a silent sigh. “You're kinda right.”

Nico was back gazing at his cup, turning it around with one hand. “You don’t need to tell me I'm right. You just need to tell her soon enough.”

“I guess so, but…” Percy tried to argue. “You don’t know how she is, man. She'll be so disappointed when I tell her. She won't look at me the same anymore. She always told me I could do anything even if I wasn't like the other kids, so she really needs to see I grew up well, y'know?”

Nico stopped fidgeting with his mug and exhaled. “Well, won't she be disappointed anyway if you agree to go to college and then drop out? Or if you won't do anything with your degree?”

Percy hesitated. “I mean, yeah. Probably.”

“So, shouldn’t it matter to her more that you're happy and not that you're successful?”

_Right._

That hit him like a slap in the face, but he didn’t let it show. “Uh…”

“Actually, what do you really want, Percy?” Nico pushed on, turning towards him again. “To pretend and make her happy for a while, or to do what makes you kinda happy in the end?”

Percy didn’t reply.

Both because he didn’t have any more arguments to put forward, and because Nico had just hit a point Percy had never realized still being sore.

And it consisted in his need to prove himself to his mom and live up to what she had always told him when he would start crying and kick furniture out of frustration as a kid because he just couldn’t get that goddamn English comprehension exercise or because he got another D on his Math quiz. She would look at him with a serious look on her face and would make him repeat to himself a mantra of “I can do it, I can do it, I can do it" until he would calm down enough to sit back on his chair and finish what they had started. That feeling also tapped into his fear of becoming like his dad which, for him, meant being inadvertently careless and an asshole to every single person close to him. That was mainly why he couldn’t bear feeling angry and he tried hard to not forget stuff.

To be a fucking nice person to, basically, everyone. Even when he didn’t want to.

And fuck, he had never even wanted to be nice to his dad's fiancée, but he always did because that was how he was supposed to behave. And the fact that he wouldn’t even manage to remain calm sometimes, since some people seemed to purposefully annoy him, didn’t help the situation. Because he would always feel guilty for getting irritated, and he would always profusely apologize for stuff he didn’t even need to apologize for.

And he hated it. He had no idea how Nico could seem so uncaring about seeming rude, or cold, at times.

That was why he asked.

“How the hell do you do it?”

Nico frowned, then, looking at him again. “What?”

“How do you not feel sorry for letting people down?” He pushed on, only later realizing it had come out wrong. He rushed to correct himself when he saw Nico's gaze quickly lower and suddenly turn thoughtful. “I mean, I’m not saying you don’t feel sorry or that you let people down. It was, like, a general question.”

“I don’t,” Nico replied, low, making Percy's voice die in his throat.

He threw him a puzzled look. “You don’t?”

Nico didn’t have a chance to answer before his mom opened the bathroom door, walking back to her room while tying her hair up in a bun.

“Shower's free, honey!” She chimed from the end of the corridor. “You're going to help Paul with the cooking after, so you better move now!”

Percy rolled his eyes, sighing.

“Okay, fine!” He replied, loud, making Nico perk his head up in surprise. Percy glanced at him then, embarrassed. “Uh, sorry.”

Nico chuckled, amused. “Don't mind. I'm used to that,” he replied, cracking a smile. “It feels familiar.”

“You impersonate the ancient ghost boy part pretty well, you know that?” Percy teased while the other got up to place his mug in the sink.

“Shut up,” Nico muttered back, a bit more lively than other times.

Percy smiled to himself before getting up and briefly leaving a couple kisses on top of Nico's head.

After that, he was quickly off to the bathroom. He heard his mom and Nico initiating a quiet conversation as he turned on the shower and stepped inside. He tried catching on to a few words before giving up on it entirely.

In the meantime, he let himself wonder about how to approach the subject.

Nico’s question kept on echoing back and forth in his skull, like all the things he would have rather not thought about.

His mom probably thought that good life and happiness equaled a degree and a stable job. And she would have been right. Never worry about being able to pay the bills had definitely contributed to her own happiness when he was smaller and his dad was still trying to get his life together. After leaving his mom alone to take care of him, his parents would fight a lot over the phone for money matters since his dad had never been constant with his contributions. That was why Percy felt like trusting him pretty much never. Then, of course, Percy wasn’t his only child, since Tyson came into the picture only two years after he was born, and that never made things easy for none of them. What had been especially hard was seeing his dad paying more attention to his half-brother than to him.

Which of course, led him to logically turn to his mom. He just knew she adored him with all her heart, even when she started dating other men and eventually ended up moving in with Paul. It had always been him and her when he was smaller. That was why, during his first month of elementary school, he would start weeping and screaming for hours on end demanding to see his mom because he was, apparently, too scared of seeing her go. Other people would come and go, but they would always find themselves alone at the end.

Percy could never leave her. So, sure, he had always walked close behind her and listened to whatever she had wanted him to do. And he probably loved her a bit too much, though, and would only realize it in instances like these. He shouldn’t have blamed himself for being so reluctant to raid down his mom's expectations purely because he didn’t want to see her sad. Because that was pretty much the only reason why he had been avoiding that conversation for weeks.

Sucking in a breath and feeling the hot water wash down his shoulders and back, he laid his forehead on the wet tiled wall, letting his hair fall in his face.

So, that was it. Even if he were to refuse Nico's suggestion to talk to her about it, there would have been no way he wasn’t going to the event. And that still applied if his mom were to disapprove. He would have felt bad anyway, but telling her _before_ was surely going to be a better move than smiling of fake-acceptance and suck it in to then betray her trust.

It was around twenty minutes after he had entered the shower that he accepted how none of his logical reasoning was going to change the eventuality that he was about to let her down. That day, nonetheless.

He finally turned off the water after making his significant contribution to that month’s water bill, and walked back out.

He didn’t even bother rinsing his hair completely before walking out of the bathroom in his clean(er) clothes and stepping down the corridor.

The bedroom door opened a moment later, a few quiet steps echoing behind him.

Percy turned around to be met with Nico's gaze. His expression turned from neutral to puzzled in a few seconds.

“Is that the I’m-about-to-tell-her look?” Nico questioned discretely. “I kinda thought you would’ve looked less terrified.”

Percy pressed his lips together and glanced towards the kitchen. He looked back at Nico.

“It's more complicated than it looks,” Percy explained, hoping to earn at least some sympathy.

Nico scrutinized him, then. He shrugged lightly. “If you say so,” he concluded.

“Trust me, though. I got this.”

Observing Percy's awkward side-smile, Nico frowned slightly. “Are you sure?”

He was not. “’Course, man.”

Nico clearly wasn't convinced. “So it's no problem if I do my own stuff while you talk to her?”

“I told you, it's fine,” Percy lied, again, but not hesitating this time.

Nico raised his eyebrows, muttering an “Okay" before he was back inside Percy's room, probably to recover his clothes and the bath stuff Percy had left him on his desk.

Percy forced himself to turn around and walk the remaining distance from him and the hardest conversation he was going to have in years.

He would have honestly liked for Nico to be there with him; but that would have only shown the other how he wasn’t able to deal with his own problems by himself like the almost-adult he was supposed to act like. It was better to suffer alone than to put his own pressure on someone else's shoulders.

He shouldn’t act like a burden, he told himself as he breathed in, walking into the kitchen where his mom sat with her glasses on. She raised her head then, greeting him again with a small smile.

Then, she frowned disapprovingly. “Honey, you know how your hair gets when you don’t blow them dry,” she said, lowering her head on her phone yet again. “I don’t wanna hear you complain about them looking shaggy this evening."

“I won't complain, mom. They're awful anyway,” he spoke, resigned, sitting down in front of her. He didn’t look at her in the eye just yet.

She hummed then, and he thoughtfully bit his lip. He would have liked to know when he had agreed to his life being made of difficult conversations and condescending looks, because he definitely wasn’t enjoying it.

“Uh, mom…” he tried, making her look into his green eyes. “About that gaming event…”

Her eyebrows knotted. “Percy, I wanted to talk with Paul about this first. It’s not easy to tell you no, but…”

“It's not just that,” Percy stopped her, making her raise her eyebrows, curious.

There was silence then as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Um…”

She put her phone down while she gazed at him patiently.

“Come on, dear, what is it?” She encouraged him after another moment of silence.

Percy looked at her in the eye. Christ, there was no way he could sugar-coat that. “I'm not…” he tried, hesitating. “Going to college.”

She stared, sighing silently. “Percy, we’ve gone through this already, I know it's hard…”

“No, mom, listen to me,” Percy interrupted her again, placing an open hand on the table. “I’ve decided. It's not something I want to do. I’d rather do anything else.”

“What else _is_ there, honey? You've got so much potential, I already told you I'd really like for you to at least try and see where this goes…”

“Anyone's got the potential to do something, mom, that's not the point!” He interrupted her again, frank. He kept his voice low. “Why does mine have to do with school? Why can't I do swimming or anything else?”

“If you would have wanted to try swimming you’d have already,” she pushed on, severe. “And how is this connected to gaming? Are you telling me you want to do that for life?”

“No!” Percy rushed to reply. “No, I don’t, it just came up since it could be a great opportunity to try it out and, maybe, one day I can, y'know, do that on the side along with something else…” his voice faded as he saw her massaging her eyes behind her glasses. “Mom, listen, please…”

“Percy, I'm listening, but this is going nowhere,” she replied, defeated. His stomach dropped. “I can’t let you go. You know I can't. That's not what you worked for all this time.”

He pressed his lips together, exhaling sharply through his nose.

“You _can_ let me go, you just don’t want to,” Percy replied, involuntarily bitter. She opened her mouth to retaliate, but he didn’t let her. “Let's face it, mom, I know you don’t want me to end up like dad. I mean, do you think _I’d_ ever want that?” Her eyebrows raised in surprise as she closed her mouth to let him speak. He kept on. “But I don’t have to get a degree at twenty-one to prove you I'm not gonna be like him, right? I can be less of an asshole and still do my own thing. I promise I won't waste my life away. I actually already know what I’m gonna do.”

She scrutinized him with her blue eyes, eyebrows a bit knotted down. She sighed. “And what's that?”

“I wanna go to Florida,” he confessed. He didn’t even need to think about what to say. “And I want a job at the beach. Like, lifeguard and stuff. Then, you know I always wanted to try and be a surf instructor or that professional scuba diving thing I did last summer. That'd be so cool,” he kept going, counting on his fingers. “California would also be cool, though, y’know? It'd be easier to see Annabeth then. Actually, I could also…”

“Okay, okay, honey,” she stopped him, raising her hand. She sighed heavily through her nose, averting her gaze to the side.

He promptly stopped rambling, looking at her expectantly. He hesitated, and then joined his hands together in front of him. “Mom, please…”

“You really thought about it, didn’t you?” She finally said, looking back at him with a cryptic look on her face. He nodded, slowly. “Does Nico have to do with any of this?”

Percy went still. “Uh, no, I don’t…” he frowned, averting his gaze. He actually tried to think. “Well, him coming with me would be great, I guess. But I don’t think he knows.”

She let out a light giggle. “I meant if he convinced you to do any of this. So, did he?”

Percy looked back at her, flustered. “I mean,” he pondered. “He asked me to join his team some months ago. I think that's pretty much it.”

She sat still, gazing at him, arms crossed on her chest and a benevolent expression on her face. “I see,” she said softly, lowering her voice along with her gaze. She seemed thoughtful. “Percy, you have to promise me one thing.”

He perked up, sitting at the edge of his seat and leaning against the table. “Sure.”

“If I let you do it,” she spoke, looking right at him again. “Please, honey. Don’t make me regret this.”

It took a moment for those words to sink in.

When they did, though, the hugest relieved and joyful grin appeared on his face. He didn’t even realize he had jumped up to go hug her in a tight hug. She laughed then, complaining about how he was becoming too strong for her to appreciate his surprise-hugs anymore. He kissed her on both cheeks, just because he could, and left her giggling and asking him to stop in a not-so-authoritative voice anymore.

“Fine, fine, honey, but don’t think you can use this as an excuse for not studying for…”

“I won't, mom, jeez!” He stated enthusiastically, still grinning. “I told you I'll do both!”

“Nuh-uh young man, studying is still your top priority,” she admonished, a finger in front of his face. The sound of the bathroom door opening distracted Percy from listening to her final sentence, though.

Definitely too excited to stay still, he dismissed her with what he hoped was a reassuring “Okay, deal,” before he was off towards Nico's figure stepping in his own room.

He barely registered her sighing in the background before he was stumbling into the room and looking at Nico with that same wide grin on his face.

As the other turned around after hearing him coming in, he wore an alert and wary expression as Percy stepped forward and cupped his cheeks with enthusiasm.

He was about to lean in to kiss him before he could luckily stop himself. “Oh, shit, fuck, sorry,” Percy stuttered, taking a step back and averting his gaze towards the floor. “Sorry, that was out of habit, I'm just happy that…”

“Did she say yes?” Nico asked, having visibly relaxed from a moment before.

Percy rose his gaze towards him, hopeful.

“Uh, yeah. She’ll come with me. And I may not have to go to college anymore,” he replied, still fidgeting. Not really be able to stand still, he cupped his own cheeks and run his hands down his face with an incredulous grin. “God, I can't believe I…”

Nico was now the one approaching him and taking his face in his warm hands before placing a sudden, light peck on his lips.

Percy instinctively closed his eyes as he did so, reciprocating the kiss. He rushed to leave another one on the other’s lips, just because he could. The smile on his face turned from excited to sweet when he opened his eyes to look at Nico in front of him.

He spotted the pink on his cheeks before Nico was off again to the other side of the room, unplugging his phone from the socket near the bed.

“I told you you just needed to talk to her,” he spoke in a low voice, but with a hint of gentleness that made Percy’s stomach fill with flying confetti.

He stopped to stare at the younger boy in silence. Feeling his gaze on his back, Nico turned around to look at him with a frown on his face.

He threw him a questioning look.

Percy shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing,” he spoke, mellow. “I just like you, I guess.”

Nico quickly averted his gaze at those words, bothered. “Thank you.”

Percy genuinely chuckled. “Uh, you're welcome, I guess?”

Nico muttered something Percy couldn’t grasp before he directed himself towards the door. “What’s that?” Percy joked, smirking.

“I just said you're a dumbass,” Nico replied from just outside the corridor, making Percy laugh yet again.

And, of course, the morning and then lunchtime passed all too quickly for Percy’s tastes. His shitty sense of time was surely contributing to making it seem like minutes were flowing by like seconds, but he knew the other reason had to do with why he was ardently avoiding thinking about Nico going back home. Because if it had been for him, he would have gladly let Nico stay over until his parents would have kicked both of them out.

Of course, that would have never been possible, because Nico would have probably started going crazy on the second day. Maybe the third, if Percy could have managed to keep it down more than 24 hours, which wasn't likely. He knew he could be draining, especially when everything made him feel so genuinely happy.

And, fuck, did he have a whole lot of reasons to feel euphoric. Everything he had never thought possible was happening all at once. Nico just maybe returning his feelings, winning the online tournament, his mom accepting his wishes of not going to college. Almost too much for him to handle that he was kinda glad Nico wouldn’t have had the occasion to be with him much longer.

Almost, though, because he certainly wasn't feeling cheerful at all when he saw Nico getting up from the couch where they both were chilling after lunch, mindlessly scrolling through Nico's phone and the impressive list of games he still had to try out. His dad had put the condition that he could’ve stayed at Percy's only if he could agree to join him on that afternoon's work meeting, considering the man still had plans to hand Nico the reins of the company.

Which, in all honesty, made Percy quite annoyed with the guy. Not really because he would have always liked to spend more time with his son, but because he was all-too-familiar with people making decisions for, and not with, him. It had never been a huge problem, but having an outsider's perspective on the situation now, it was definitely uncomfortable to see. Especially since Nico had never shown any active interest in his dad's job.

Despite everything, he let Nico gather his stuff from his room without complaints before the younger boy walked back towards the front door with his backpack hanging on one shoulder. Putting his black-and-white shoes on, he said goodbye to Percy's mom and Paul greeting him by the kitchen entrance. He smiled politely at them, exchanging a brief respectful conversation filled with “thank you”s and “come back soon”s before it was Percy's turn to say goodbye.

Arms crossed in his chest, and looking at Nico with probably a bothered expression on his face, he pressed his lips together.

He saw Nico slightly frown at him, then, before he could announce “I'll walk you downstairs,” already grabbing his slippers from the living room and rushing back towards the door.

Nico opened his mouth to protest before Percy opened the door and walked out, not even glancing at the puzzled, questioning look on Paul's face. He heard his mom mutter something to him before Percy directed himself towards the stairs at a quick pace.

He heard Nico follow behind him after a moment, his steps way lighter than his own on the way down.

Percy was still selfishly postponing the time to say goodbye, but he had no will to stop. He still remembered how awful it felt seeing him go last time; he wasn't going to let that happen again so soon.

Reaching the ground floor and the glass doors at the bottom of the stairs, Percy glanced at the street to again spot the same black car as last time standing ominous at the other side of the road.

He turned to gaze at Nico, then. He was thoughtfully observing his dad’s car, too.

“So…” Percy hesitated, voice low. “See you soon?”

Nico didn’t answer, making Percy turn towards him.

He looked at the other's black eyes still eyeing the road in front of him. No particular sign of anxiety could be spotted on his face or in his shoulders, and Percy wondered what was still keeping him there.

Then, Nico opened his mouth to say something, only to hesitate and close it again.

His lips pressed into a thin line, he briefly glanced at Percy before he turned around towards him, too.

“Thank you,” he suddenly stated.

Percy frowned, unsure. “Uh, about what exactly?”

Nico seemed to ponder yet again, turning his head to gaze outside yet again. “Sometimes…” he started, but cut himself off before he could finish. He let a small sigh travel out of his nose. “You know, I just don’t click with people sometimes,” he continued, making Percy frown even more. At least he was listening, though. “They're all a bit like my dad. It's like they think it's gonna end up badly if they let me do things by myself.”

Percy stared at his just slightly frowned eyebrows and was about to reply when Nico continued. “You're not really like that. So, thank you. I like being here.”

Percy stared some more, relaxing his eyebrows as his words sunk in.

Warmth filled up his chest, and a side-smile appeared fast on his face. He shrugged lightly. “Yeah, well, I know what that's like. It sucks,” he admitted, light-hearted. “I'm not really the mom friend if you hadn’t noticed already.”

Nico smiled discretely before gazing at him again, attentively observing his face. He had no idea what he was thinking, but he found Nico’s tiny smiles to be one of his favorite sights ever.

Percy saw the other’s gaze fall on his lips, then, before they were back at his eyes again. “Can I…?” The younger boy asked.

Percy smiled happily, briefly licking his lips before nodding.

Quicker than he expected, Nico took the sides of his face in his hands before kissing him softly, lingering on his lips for a moment.

Percy sucked in a breath and felt butterflies coming up inside his stomach before he reciprocated the kiss, holding himself back from dragging the other closer. He just hesitatingly wrapped his arms around Nico's waist, leaving the other enough time to move them away before Percy could lightly squeeze him to his chest. The rush of joy that came to him as he felt Nico slowly lay against him was almost too sudden, so he smiled as he deepened the second kiss.

Nico lightly caressed his cheeks before he kept on, and Percy felt himself lift up to the clouds with every passing second. It felt so much safer and natural to surrender control and let Nico do whatever he felt like doing. Because, honestly, Percy was starting to think that if Nico were to ask him to walk around NYC in a clown wig and his banana socks for his own personal enjoyment, he probably would have said yes. And he had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing, but he definitely couldn’t care less because Nico was running his hands through the sides of his hair making him let out a brief hum of approval.

(Too) soon after, though, Nico let his face go, and Percy rushed to do the same with his waist. They both took in a breath, then, after Percy opened his eyes feeling as though he had just gulped down three shots of tequila.

He looked at Nico and at his red face as the younger boy cleared his voice. Percy followed him with his eyes as he pushed the closest door open.

“See ya’,” he spoke, walking out.

“Uh-huh,” Percy mindlessly replied back.

He watched Nico stroll towards the car and soon get inside.

There was no way Nico’s dad wasn't going to notice the color on his face, Percy thought, smirking.

He turned around as soon as the car started moving, licking his lips and sprinting towards the stairs. He almost lost a slipper on the way up, but he couldn’t care less. He felt so happy he would have gladly accepted every kind of bad news knowing none of them would have stuck with him for more than a couple seconds. And that felt like a euphemism. That kind of happiness felt so unfamiliar to him that he had almost forgotten he had the potential to even feel it.

Stepping inside his house yet again, he closed the door behind him and went straight to the kitchen.

His mom turned around from her spot in front of the oven, crouched down on the floor to check on her carrot cake. She perked up then, eyeing the smile plastered on his face. It took a moment for her expression to turn from pleasantly puzzled to understanding.

She smiled back, knowingly, and walked towards him to cup his face in her hands before hugging him and stroking his hair. “I'm so happy for you, honey,” she murmured discretely as he hugged her back, kissing her cheek.

He kept on grinning. “Yeah. Me too.”

And he meant it so much it hurt.

After that, the hours kept on flying by despite Percy not wanting them to.

Of course, his mom had soon put a foot down and heavily suggested him to start with his duties right away, now that he felt energized enough to do so without stressing out about it. He didn’t think he would have ever enjoyed studying (or reading for that matter), but it was certainly different now that his mind wasn't fueled by his anxious thoughts for his future anymore. No more obsession with failing, no more overwhelming pressure, no more “everyone's gonna be disappointed and hate me”. So, he spent the rest of his day in the kitchen supervised by his mom, feeling the best kind of tired that evening.

That night, he chatted with Nico and accepted Annabeth's surprise invitation to a friendly date the evening after. After that, he fell asleep smiling and thinking about how great life could be, and how he was probably going to wake up feeling normal again the following morning while not intoxicated by that euphoria anymore.

Because for how beautiful it could feel, he knew it had the same potential to create damage as sadness, or anger, or frustration. It reminded him of synthetic-drug happiness. Just, without the awful aftereffects and the lack of conscience that came with being high. He wasn’t straight-up manic when happy, since he did still have his own conscience to tell him that being happy didn’t mean everyone and everything was actually as beautiful and good as he felt it was; but receiving one or more disappointments when that high in the clouds felt much like a punch in the nose every single time. And that scared him shitless.

But when he woke up the next day, and everything was still tinted in vibrant colors, he opted for a cold shower before catching up on his Spanish and Biology readings the day after. He spent hours on the mock tests in the books, filling the side of the page with tiny doodles before he considered his efforts enough for him to get the prize.

He couldn’t wait to run to the skate park to blow off some of the steam he hadn’t had the chance to let out in more than two days. He learned Travis was also going to be there from their group chat, so he excitedly raced to his habitual skatepark towards the East River.

New York’s air had never felt so fresh in his lungs like that day. And that said a lot.

He jumped down from his board when he entered the wide concrete park. He snapped his earbuds out of his ears before he sloppily pushed them back in his pocket, eyeing Travis’s figure standing on the edge of a ramp not far from the entrance.

Percy followed his movements with his eyes as he prepared to jump down. He stayed still, kicking the skate in his hands as Travis speeded down the slanted floor and gathered speed before he rode up to the quarter and executed a 180 mid-air before coming back down.

The sting of jealousy Percy felt acted like the pinch that brought him back down towards the real world again.

“What’s up, Jackie?” Travis greeted him when he saw Percy approaching him on the edge of the ramp.

“You wanna do that again?” Percy challenged him, despite it being more of a request.

Travis looked at him then, smirking confidently. He punched him lightly on the shoulder. “I just mastered this. Watch.”

Percy briefly nodded in approval, while Travis grabbed his skateboard by the nose before jumping down the ramp. He built up speed to then jump up on the end of the quarter, the board rotating below his feet with his body before he was back on the slanting floor. Another perfect frontside 180.

Percy gazed attentively at his movements to uselessly try and incorporate them into his own repertoire. He knew fully well that Travis had always just been better than him, though. Trying to emulate his movements was never going to end up well.

Stopping near Percy’s side, the other boy looked at him with a sly smile. “Sick, right?” He stated, kicking the skate back into his hand.

“When did you land that first, man?” Percy asked, trying to divert the topic.

Travis casually shrugged. “A week ago or something,” he replied. “I almost shat my pants the first time, dude, you have no idea. It sent me flyin’.”

Percy lowered himself to watch a curly-haired girl try the same trick and also managing to stand back on her feet right after. He buried back his inadequacy complex before he looked back at Travis.

“Think I’m gonna try some rail tricks,” Percy mentioned, still bitter at heart, getting back up with his skate in hand.

“That lame shit, man?” Travis questioned as Percy turned around towards the park’s stairs. “Come on baby Jackie, I bet you can do this.”

“I’m good, man,” Percy patiently turned him down. “I need to practice that boardslide first.”

He had learned at his own expense what it meant to give in to Travis’s pressuring suggestions. Promising his mom he didn’t have any intention of disappointing her included behaving like a mature person even outside of his home.

After a moment of silence, though, he heard Travis travel close to him, grunting. “Fine, man. Imma try that smithgrind thing.”

“What?” Percy promptly asked, incredulous. “Dude, you almost broke your leg last time. You’re suicidal or something?”

“No need to worry, mom,” He teased, delivering a powerful pat on Percy’s back. “I got better at it. You’ll see.”

Percy glanced at him as they strolled up the few stairs, looking at the other run past him towards the top. He made a face and shrugged, resigned. If a person more stubborn than him even existed, that was definitely Travis Stoll, so he didn’t even try to argue about it.

They moved back from the railing on top of the stairs, making space for their first practice ollies down the stairs. Travis insisted on moving on to the actual rail tricks multiple times, and Percy gave in to the pressure around the fifth. The other boy invited him to go first, curious and with a sly grin on his face.

Percy walked back, carefully eyeing the thin rail. Letting go of his board with a push and running back on the deck, he miraculously managed to land on the floor unscathed before jumping off mid-trick. His skate went tumbling down the final stairs before stopping at the base.

He made a face as he walked to retrieve it.

“Great try, man,” Travis called from behind. “Try staying on the rail next time.”

Percy smirked at the tease and didn’t bother looking up at him as he ran up the stairs.

“Break a leg,” Percy teased back, still confidently smirking and glancing at the other walk far back from the rail. He felt bad hoping Travis wouldn’t land the trick on his first try; he did so anyway, for his selfish desire to feel a tiny bit better about himself.

“You wish,” Travis replied, thoughtful, attentively eyeing the rail.

He started running a moment after, and Percy’s gaze instinctively glued to his movements out of worry. Both his hopes and fears were confirmed when he saw Travis fall to his right side directly on the lower step of the stairs. Percy instinctively tensed up despite forcing himself to relax when he saw Travis rolling around on the ground, grunting of frustration instead of pain.

He started laughing, relieved, when Travis got up from the concrete, standing up and holding his arm where it had hit the edge of the hard step. “I hate to tell you man, but you gotta stay on the rail,” Percy teased.

“Shut up, dude, you know rails are a pain in the fuckin’ ass,” the wavy-haired boy complained, walking back up the stairs and adjusting his red baseball cap.

Percy snickered as he stepped back again for his second try.

They kept on going until both of them managed to sporadically stick their respective tricks; Percy a bit more sporadically than Travis, as it always was. The only silver lining for him had been to see Travis still struggling at least as much as him, for once, which meant he was at least as human as Percy was. The other boy didn’t care that much about wiping out, though. Travis had spent a huge part of his skateboarding experience falling and hurting himself like he enjoyed it. He could jump off mid-trick with his eyes closed and still not break anything.

When Percy had gained the confidence to travel on his board for the whole duration of the trick, landing unscathed for the third time in a row, he was positive he had mastered the trick.

He turned back to Travis, who high-fived him, grinning confidently. “That was smooth, man,” he commented, and Percy was about to reply when a male voice called from behind them.

“Hey, jerks!” It chimed, making them both swiftly turn around towards the bottom of the stairs.

Percy tensed up and didn’t relax when he recognized Luke Castellan gazing at them from a few feet below, hand blocking the sunrays while Ethan Nakamura stood behind him, making a blunt stop on his skate. Percy didn’t smile back at him when the older boy did, but Travis was definitely grinning as he greeted him back.

“Yo, asshole!” He sang, jumping down the stairs on his skate before making a 180 to travel closer to Luke’s, squeezing his hand in a handshake. “When did you travel back?”

“I drove back on Friday night. Did you get taller from Christmas, T?”

“I’m taller than little Connie now, man,” Percy heard Travis proudly reply as he calmly strolled down the stairs.

Luke turned towards him with a sly grin on his face. “You kinda look the same, Jackson,” He mentioned, making Percy casually shrug.

“I guess,” he replied unenthusiastically, looking at Ethan behind the older guy and greeting him with a nod. The other greeted him back in silence. “How’s college?”

“Not really like you imagine it,” Luke replied, kicking his own skate back into his own hands by its tail. “It’s all fun and games the first few months and then you find yourself getting behind on courses you didn’t even know you were supposed to take. But…” he rose a shoulder, side-smiling. “The parties are lit.”

Percy kept himself from making any kind of face at that comment.

“Cool,” Percy replied dryly, already turning back up the stairs.

He had all the intention to walk away as soon as he could when it came to having Travis and Luke together. They tended to make a really annoying combination of heavy sarcasm and bad jokes.

“Practicing on the rail?” He heard Luke ask.

He ignored the question, guessing it probably wasn’t directed at him in the first place.

“Nah, we’re done here,” Travis announced, making Percy stop in his tracks. “We’re heading back to the ramp.”

Percy turned around, looking at Travis with a frown before Luke spoke again, a pleased grin on his face. “Let me see how you do then, son,” he put an arm around Travis. “Did you break something yet?”

“I almost broke my leg a month ago, dude. That was insane,” Travis kept going as he started walking, Luke still squeezing his shoulders.

It was pretty evident Travis’s wish had always been to follow his cousin’s steps. Realizing he probably wasn’t going to get accepted by Luke’s same elite college, he was still trying to leave high school keeping Luke’s same reputation of life of the party. He had never fully grasped the source for Travis’ admiration for his cousin, though, since the only term Percy had come up with to describe the guy had instead always been “asshole”. Not even ironically anymore, since the guy had been one of the main bullies that would bother Tyson and his friends at school. And if he hadn’t been friends with Travis and Connor, Percy could bet Luke would have bothered him, too.

As Percy laid with an arm against the railing, looking at them go with a light frown on his face, Ethan walked closer to the stairs and laid on the rail, too, looking up at him. “How’s school?”

Percy snapped out of his unpleasant internal monologue.

He lowered his gaze towards him, kind of grateful for the intervention. “Going okay. I need to catch up on my Chemistry and Spanish classes, but it shouldn’t be that hard,” he answered, softening his tone. “You’re in Luke’s same faculty now?”

“Yeah. Political sciences,” he stated, throwing his board face-down on the rail to check on the wheels. “Ending my freshman year.”

“How’re you liking it?”

“It’s fine, I guess. I mostly study in my dorm. I don’t really like the parties,” Ethan confessed, tone dry. “Just a bunch of stoned frat guys trying to get laid, y’know?”

Percy chuckled, his lips hinting at a smile. “Guess I’m not going.”

“Do whatever, man. You’re not missing out on anything,” he mentioned, grabbing his skateboard by the nose again. He looked up at Percy. “Wanna go see those two idiots get a concussion?”

Percy glanced at Luke and Travis standing by the lid, getting ready to ride down the ramp, before hearing Travis loudly complain about Luke stealing his cap. Looking back at Ethan’s amused expression, he replied with a sly smile. “Sounds hilarious.”

He followed the other boy down the stairs and towards the others, observing Luke sliding down the quarter at high speed to then blunt stalling on the opposite lid. He drove back with a confident grin on his face, looking at Travis as he stopped his board beside him. He patted his little cousin hard on the shoulder and squeezed before it was Travis’s turn to depart. Percy stood beside Ethan as Travis made a series of beginner’s tricks, one on each side of the ramp until he wiped out during the last hurricane stall.

He fell quite softly again thanks to his practice before Luke bursted out laughing.

“And what were you saying?” He teased, making Travis raise his middle finger at him before walking out the ramp, head low.

“Gimme a break, blondie, I got started just a week ago,” Travis argued, standing beside Luke again and checking on the light bruise on his elbow.

Percy glanced at it, too, discreetly, just to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.

“How about you, swimmer-team kid?” Luke suddenly asked, making Percy’s head perk up towards him.

“What’s up?”

“Wanna show me some tricks?” He questioned, provocative, head gesturing at the ramp.

Percy eyed the ramp. He visualized the necessary movements to complete any beginner trick he knew of that would shut the asshole up for good. It wasn’t like he wanted to win over someone, or something; he was just certain that, if he had refused, Luke would have started teasing him relentlessly until he would have given up and done some stupid shit to save face. And, of course, he would have ended up with a nasty distortion at best.

That was why he should have tried to ignore Luke altogether, but it was hard when the guy seemed to actively try to annoy him every single time.

“Nah man, he cannot…” Travis replied for him, but Percy cut him off. “Like what?”

Travis looked at him weird, then. Luke made a face and shrugged instead. “Just whatever. To show T it’s not that hard to get it right.”

Percy ignored Travis’s annoyed looks he was throwing Luke’s direction, arms crossed, despite not even trying to talk back. He kept his own irritation buried deep inside as he replied. “Fine,” he snorted, getting into position.

“Man, didn’t you just say you’d rather not do this?” Travis argued, questioning, but Luke silenced him. “Quit being tight, T, don’t spoil the moment.”

Percy didn’t reply to avoid saying things he knew he would have regretted soon after.

He just opted for an easy axle stall he had mastered months before after barely making it out uninjured multiple times. He breathed in before he let his boards slide down fast, preparing himself for the full stop at the lid. Making a 50-50 and stalling on the edge, he turned his board back around a moment later to drive back towards Luke’s direction.

He stopped back in front of them, and the older boy held out a hand to high-five him while Travis looked at him with a cryptic expression on his face.

“That was smooth, kid,” Luke commented, smirking proudly, to which Ethan agreed with a hum. “Great job, Percy boy.”

“Yeah, not bad for a twink,” Travis added from the side, the hint of a shit-eating-grin on his face.

Percy felt his blood run cold.

He heard Luke’s chuckle in the background, playfully pushing Travis’s shoulder before and teased him back with something Percy didn’t register.

He turned to his side to face the other boy, tightening his lips on his board. A spark of anger and indignation arose in his chest, and set his blood boiling in a matter of seconds.

“Wanna repeat that?” He frowned menacingly, staring, after a moment.

Travis glanced at him, and the grin on his face quickly faded. He looked like he had just been caught red-handed on a crime scene. “I was kidding, man, chill out…”

“You hear someone laughing? ‘Cause I’m not,” Percy replied, sour. Luke kept on eyeing both of them like he was at a tennis game. “Say that to my face again and you’re done.”

“Woah, kiddos, what’s going on here?” Luke lowered his tone back before Travis could spit back anything else, carefully putting his hands on both boys’ shoulders. “It’s not like we’re harassing anyone here, right? It was a joke.”

“You stay the fuck out of this, Luke,” Percy spat, pushing Luke’s hand away while still staring straight into Travis’ eyes.

He felt the older boy gaze at him back, baffled, and Percy had to mentally count to five to not punch that look out of his face. “What’s this all about, Jackson?” Luke questioned, tone suggestive, after which Ethan started stepping forward with a sigh.

“Dude, you’re totally bugging, I didn’t mean…” Travis tried, but Percy didn’t care to hear. “Yeah, what did you mean? Does it bother you somehow? Do you call your brother that, too?”

“He’s not offended by that, man, he knows I’m…” Travis pushed on, making Percy scoff. “’Course he doesn’t fucking mind, he’s used to keeping up with your piece-of-shit bullshit, right?”

Travis’s jaw visibly clenched as he kicked his board to the side with an irate look on his face. “Okay, what the fuck do you want now? You wanna take it there because of a fucking joke?”

“Percy, let’s go,” Ethan announced, tone cool, holding Percy back by the shoulders when he started stepping towards Travis.

Percy registered Ethan’s voice before realizing his pulse had probably accelerated too much in a matter of a minute, and his muscles were as tense as a violin string. Just like he had always done, he counted to ten while trying to keep the rational part of his brain awake.

Taking in a shaky breath and gritting his teeth wishing Travis to be the one in between his molars, he stopped in his tracks held by Ethan’s grip.

“Come on, anyone can be a jerk sometimes,” he mentioned, not giving the other two a second glance before he patted Percy once on the shoulder and gestured behind him with his head.

Percy reluctantly accepted the invitation, physically dragging himself away from his spot. “He’s always been a fucking dickhead,” he spat, piercing into Travis’s eyes, before finally averting his gaze from the other’s angered expression and turning around.

He heard what he thought was Travis turning around, too, to walk in the opposite direction before Luke could ask him for an explanation for what had happened.

Percy didn’t care to listen for the answer.

He took in another, deeper breath to fill his lungs and chase away the tension before dragging a hand across his face to try and shake off the sudden urge to smash something and kick away the pieces.

“Sorry,” he muttered, harsh. He didn’t even know who he was apologizing to.

“I’m not gonna ask,” Ethan replied calmly, walking beside him. “But whatever the reason, you’re right. I don’t like either of them.”

“Lucky you,” Percy mentioned unenthusiastically. “I thought being friends meant something different for him. I keep on forgetting he’s never been a nice fucking person.”

Ethan patted him lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, he’s not a pleasant person to be around. Like cousin, like cousin.”

Percy exhaled, sighing, through his nose. “Yeah. Guess so.”

As they sat near the corner of the park, Percy had the time and space to calm down before asking Ethan to show him some tricks he had been practicing the last few months they hadn’t heard from each other. Ethan agreed, to Percy’s delight, eventually confirming himself as the best skateboarder Percy had ever laid eyes on.

He had never quite understood why or how Ethan, the cool kid dressed in all-black and wearing classic-rock bands t-shirts, had fallen under Luke’s wing. He suspected that had to do with Luke having a soft spot for people not talking back at him, though. That was exactly why he had never liked Percy one bit; he just pretended he did since Travis had taken a like in him out of, probably, similarity.

Because, in the end, Travis was just another problematic kid. And he needed to belong to something because people would walk past him with weird looks on their faces. And, despite all his efforts to make himself look cool and unbothered, everyone knowing him just a bit more deeply simply knew he was actually the shyest one out of all of them. That was why it didn’t matter how many times he would look and sound like a jerk; no one out of their team could ever stay angry at him for too long. Except, maybe, Jason. And that was partially why Travis had always been extra careful not to anger him in particular.

Realizing that all over again soothed him back into a pseudo-normal mode as soon as he said goodbye to Ethan to head back home. His headphones on and moving frustratingly slow trying to avoid the repeating of certain near-death experiences with traffic and barriers of people on the sidewalk, he traveled home to prep himself for his evening out. Despite trying to focus on Annabeth and not on his beef with Travis, he couldn’t find a way to catch his thoughts to stop them from swarming in his head like annoying flies.

He found a kind of comfort in the music in his ears, but when he found himself alone under the hot stream of the shower yet again, there was simply nothing that could keep him out of that uncomfortable and unfamiliar place that comment had pushed him in.

Because, of course, Travis has always been an asshole. He had repeated that to himself (and to the other) more times than he could count over the years, but Percy had always been loyal to a fault. He just couldn’t cut him out of his life. And he still liked him as a friend, frustratingly enough.

He didn’t think the problem laid with Travis Stoll as a person. It was more about the fact that, despite having always been the subject of gay jokes, it never used to bother him too much. And that was because he always felt, generally, safe. People knew he wasn’t really gay; that was just his overly friendly attitude.

Or, at least, that was until he had found out that he actually liked boys. And no, he wasn’t angry at Nico anymore for “turning him gay” because he perfectly knew there was no such thing, and that liking boys had surely happened long before he and Nico had met for the first time. But, that said, the fact he was bisexual did put him at risk now. Risk for what, he still didn’t know, but it gave a different meaning to those lame jokes and laughs he didn’t realize were hurting him more deeply than he had expected.

Because it didn’t matter that Luke or Ethan or whoever else didn’t know about him being bi, in the end. Laughing at those kinds of jokes meant they were having fun, and he was not anymore. They were making fun of _him_. And exclusively concerning something he could not change. It wasn’t a matter of teasing him for a hole in his pants; it was about him as a person and what he didn’t have control over.

And it sucked.

Turning off the shower, he rubbed his eyes to then run a hand on his wet face. Then, he sighed heavily, which felt more like a snort.

So that’s why people stayed in the closet, Percy thought. It made sense. He definitely wasn’t going to suggest anyone coming out before the time was right anymore.

And, fuck, he was probably running late.

He shook himself jumping out of the shower almost slipping and falling on the floor. He ran to his room in his bathrobe and started sweeping through his clean clothes to pick what looked most decent to go out to a Chinese restaurant, but gave up halfway because the clock on his wall was staring at him telling him that he should have been there already.

He ended up being thirty minutes late in one of his sweatshirts, zipped-up hoodie, and light blue jeans. As he walked out of his mom’s car and locked it behind him, he looked around to search for a head of wavy blonde hair waiting for him near the entrance of the restaurant.

Laying on the side of the car and taking out his phone after one last look, he glanced at his and Annabeth’s chat.

He felt a finger lightly tapping his shoulder. “Hey, skater boy,” a familiar voice suddenly came from his side.

His head swiftly perked up to be met with Annabeth’s smiling face, her grey eyes scrutinizing him with a tease.

Smiling back and relaxing, he greeted her and put his phone back down. “Hey, wise girl,” he teased back. Then, he stopped to frown. “Wait, you just got here?”

“That’s right,” she replied, smirking. “I didn’t want you to be late, so I set the appointment for half an hour before. I walked here from the library when you told me you were taking your mom’s car.”

Percy scrutinized her pleased expression and smirked back at her. “Hey, it’s you who refused to be picked up.”

“I can walk just fine, Percy,” she chuckled, messing up his hair with a hand. “At least they won’t bring us recycled food now that we’re on time.”

“What, you still remember that?” Percy exclaimed, surprised, starting to walk beside her towards the glass doors. She giggled back. “Was that like, three years ago?”

“I’m surprised you remember the date.”

“Won’t ever forget our second date, Annie girl,” he replied, throwing an arm around her shoulders and opening the doors to let them both inside. She jokingly pinched his side in return, making him retreat with a giggle before they could be escorted to their table.

They sat across from each other on the small dark table and waited to order first before they could start catching up on the details of what had happened since they had last met, the day they had decided to go on break. As always, Percy learned Annabeth was under a lot of pressure from mostly herself to get her grades as high as possible to receive some kind of compensation from her school for her effort. Apart from that, her family was just fine, while she had gone to visit her mom in California recently and that had been a really nice break from her conflict with her dad’s wife at home. When she asked her about him instead, his first reaction had been to tell her how much stuff had happened since the last time they talked.

So, he opened his mouth to speak, feeling excited at the mere thought of telling her everything. But then, he stopped. He looked at her and her calm, content expression and told himself that he just couldn’t. She still didn’t know. She had no idea about the gaming tournament, no idea about his mom giving up on trying to make him pursue any higher education, but, mostly, she had no idea who Nico was. She had no idea about what that meant for him.

She frowned then, suddenly perplexed. “What’s wrong?”

He stayed still. “Uh…” he hesitated. There was no reason for him to be scared. Not with her, especially. She wasn’t going to think bad of him for something so minimal.

But, maybe, she was going to judge him for liking someone that it wasn’t her, and that person being a boy. He had no idea how that conversation could end up, and just like every time he had talked to her about something less minimal than school or her work or stupid movies, he was excessively worried about misunderstandings or, worse, her judgment.

“Percy,” she spoke light-heartedly. “Is it regarding that… person? It’s no problem if you want to tell me…”

“I’d like to,” he impulsively replied, gazing at her. Then, he hesitated again. “Um. I mean, I wanted to tell you, but I don’t know if it’d be appropriate or if you actually want to know…”

“I do,” she replied after a moment of pondering, laying forward with her elbows on the table. She directed him a small smile, her lips pressed together. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been curious since you told me, but I figured you probably needed time to figure it out on your own, so I didn’t ask.”

He kept on eyeing her with what he realized was a worried look before he breathed in, steady and then exhaled in a sigh. Travis’s words came to mind again when he thought about how to articulate what he wanted to say.

He cringed inside.

“Well,” he started, shifting on his chair. He lowered his voice. “I told you there was this person. We actually saw each other a few days ago.”

“How’d it go?” She questioned.

He couldn’t feel anything apart from genuine interest in her voice, so he pushed himself to keep on going. “It was…” he continued, before pressing his lips together and keeping his eyes on the glass of water in front of him. He still didn’t feel safe. “Anne, are you sure you wanna know this? I mean, nothing much really happened but it still feels…”

She gazed at him, letting out a silent sigh. She retreated back on her chair, averting her gaze for a moment.

“I don’t particularly mind. I’d like to be your friend at least and…” she continued, voice low. She shrugged lightly. “I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it just yet it’s completely fine. I’m not really happy to hear about it, but I’m not that sad either. Really, I was just curious about…”

“They’re a guy,” Percy blurted out in one breath, eyes still fixed on the table in front of him. He took in a deep breath then, shaking his head. “Sorry, didn’t want to interrupt you.”

She was silent on the other side of the table. Feeling his nerves perk up, he looked up at her only to find a cryptic look across her face. She let out a brief chuckle.

“What?” He asked defensively, confused.

“I’m sorry honey, I just…” she apologized, softening her tone. “That’s not really a surprise. I was just waiting for you to admit that to yourself at this point.”

He stared at her. Conflicting feelings were making him both extremely relieved while still remaining wary for no particular reason. “You mean you knew?”

“Well, no,” she replied, going back to cross-armed position on the table. “But you didn’t use any pronouns, so I figured it couldn’t really be a girl. Then you seemed so conflicted about it all, and the only people you had mentioned meeting online were guys, so I was kind of expecting something like that.”

Percy listened to her words carefully, fidgeting with the glass in front of him, and lowering his gaze back down. An amused smile appeared on his lips then. Not really because there was anything particular to laugh at, if not himself.

“I thought you’d… y’know…” he hesitated, awkwardly shifting in his chair. “It’s not weird for you?”

She giggled then, brief and low. “Why should it be weird?” She questioned, shrugging lightly. “I agree with the people saying that no one’s really fully straight, or gay. There’s always a fluctuation in between.”

He chuckled. “I know people who’d make you think otherwise.”

“I don’t think so,” she argued, a small smile on her lips. “The most adamant people in defending their sexuality are the most insecure about it, most of the time.”

He raised his eyebrows at her, humming. Then, he smirked. “Are you defensive about your own sexuality, Annie girl?”

“Oh, shut up,” she joked, crossing her arms yet again and delivering him tiny smile. “So, you met with him. You still didn’t tell me how it went.”

He felt her scrutinizing gaze on his expression as he nervously licked his lips. A side-smile appeared on his face as he averted his gaze. “It was good.”

“Yeah?”

“We kinda…” he made a face, hesitating. “Kissed?”

Her mouth fell open for a second. “Oh,” She exclaimed, voice discrete. There was silence for a moment. “Wait, what do you mean ‘kinda’?”

“Okay, we _actually_ kissed,” Percy glanced at her briefly, flustered.

“That’s…” She hesitated after a moment. “I’m glad it went well, Percy. So are you two dating?”

Percy stopped for a moment, pondering. “Uh…” he said, thoughtful. “I don’t know.”

Annabeth sighed, frustrated. Then, she chuckled. “Percy, do you like each other?”

“I don’t know!” Percy half-whispered, frustrated. “He’s kinda… different.”

She frowned. “As in?”

“He’s not a warm person. And he’s got anxiety problems and this cold attitude going on that can make him look so cool, but…” he kept on, grumbling. “You know how I get when I’m happy and all.”

She hummed sympathetically, sitting still on her chair. “But he’s okay with kissing?”

“Guess so,” he explained, hesitant, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “He did twice already.”

“Then I guess he probably does like you,” she concluded, matter-of-factly. Then, she frowned slightly. “Didn’t you tell me you’ve met him months ago? Isn’t that enough time to ask him out?”

Percy knew. He knew he had already wasted enough time dragging behind his own doubts and self-esteem issues that he still didn’t want to recognize as being overly present, but he couldn’t just pretend everything was fine.

He made a face. “It’s complicated.”

“Honey, you know I love you,” she started, bothered. “But most of the times you told me that, it turned out to actually be way simpler than you made it seem.”

Percy raised his eyebrows, head perking up to look at her eyes. She imitated his expression, making him roll his eyes and let out a sigh. “Okay, fine. I’ll ask him.”

She smiled with her lips pressed together yet again, caressing her arm with her thumb. “How's that asshole Chemistry teacher treating you?”

He smiled at her, amused, to then adjust on his chair and relax against it before he went on about his last bad grade and the look on Mrs. Dodds face when he handed in his essay late. They kept talking and talking like they hadn't done so in ages, and of course, they ended up talking about Nico. Or, better, Percy ended up rambling about him at times before he could stop himself from doing so. He regretted it every single time, despite Annabeth making no comment about it and not making any effort to interrupt him when he did so.

They kept on going until the time came to leave the table and drive home for both of them.

On the drive to her house, Percy thought about what she had said about people never being a hundred percent straight. Smiling to himself, he concluded he enjoyed thinking about it like that. Because what it meant was, in some weird way, it wasn’t him who was wrong or different. Or, even if he was, he was just as different as everybody else. Now, he could actually very well see the meaning behind Jason's comments about Travis' overly straight presentation, and it was actually starting to be kind of funny to think about. In the end, he would have kept on ignoring his own tastes in people for much longer if it hadn’t been for Nico himself.

He looked at Annabeth when he parked in front of her house, and he smiled at her as he had just seen her for the first time. She smiled back, a bit puzzled, probably unaware of it all, before hugging him goodbye and leaving a quick affectionate kiss on his cheek.

He looked at her walk back to her door and realized it wasn't so bad. This wasn't so bad.

And being himself had actually never felt so right.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is!!!! oh my gosh!!!! i'm embarassed to say i have corrected half of this during a live university lecture. i'm not even feeling guilty about that though. (there might me some typos and stuff here and there but please bear with me)
> 
> CONTENT WARNING for mentioning of homophobia and homophobic slurs. no actual homophobic acts are present. stay safe!!!

The tournament would have been in a month. That meant that finals coincided with the week of the event, which meant not-so-good things for his final grades.

It would have been even more inconvenient if he would have had to keep his grades high and focus on his SATs, but his mom still wished for him to get to decent enough (if not good) final marks, meaning he slacking off was out of the question. Which wasn’t comforting, since more important things were in his mind at that moment.

Or, at least, that he personally considered important.

Like leveling up in _NuOlympus_ , and Nico. That was pretty much it, apart from the whole aftermath of his fight with Travis. Nothing else crossed his mind those days, which was a big statement considering he usually couldn’t stick with a plan for more than two days without getting demotivated or straight-up bored.

He didn’t exactly like to consider the issue with Travis a problem. As in, it _was_ , but it wasn't like that had been the first time Percy had heard something of that nature coming out of Travis's mouth. But the memories of that whole exchange kept on replaying whenever he would come across him at school, and they just wouldn’t leave him alone. And, in the end, they would always turn into the belief that he had put Travis in a difficult position because of a misunderstanding. It was obvious Travis hadn’t expected Percy to react like that, and Percy could have given him plenty of hints to not use a certain language now that it definitely had a whole other effect on him.

He could have done so many things except bugging over something minimal like that.

Or, at least, that's what his mind was trying to make him believe. He was guilt-tripping himself for absolutely no reason except his fundamental belief that he was, apart from being overly dramatic, also not allowed to really talk back; because he never had, up until that point.

He hated feeling offended. He disliked everything that had to do with having to feel any kind of shame or inadequacy because that was what he kept on dragging behind him wherever he went.

And ignoring all that could become tiring after a while.

Because of that, his first impulse had been to apologize.

And it had been a really strong urge, but every time he would select Travis's contact to confront him about it, his anger would stop him from going anywhere further. He logically knew Travis was, technically, in the wrong. Partially, at least. But he had tried shaking off the guilt that came with his angry reaction, and he just couldn’t.

He would end up throwing his phone on his bed with annoyance, asking himself what was wrong with him and his conflicting thoughts on a situation that shouldn’t have been that difficult to begin with.

So he found himself on his bed one night, after another day of avoiding Travis in the majority of their mutual classes, trying not to think about the fact that Connor had tried talking to him about the situation a couple of times without success; but he wasn't really known for having any kind of control on his thoughts.

So, he forced himself to scroll through his Reddit feed instead.

He had evidently joined a subreddit with “bi” in its name and read through the posts in a kind of mechanic, kind of curious fashion until the fact he still didn’t know where Nico stood in that regard hit him. And he shouldn’t have cared, really, but there was still a potentially big difference between having to compete with just guys (which was definitely more worrisome) instead of guys _and_ girls.

With that question in mind, he found himself mindlessly typing away in Nico’s chat. _U there?_

It took more or less ten minutes for Nico to reply. _gaming. something up?_

His first instinct was to write _No_ ; so he did.

When, suddenly, all those times Annabeth had complained about him never opening up to her for his habit of only talking happy things popped up in his mind.

Percy bit his lip.

He didn’t enjoy bothering people, but that was one of the few times he really had no one to talk to. And he felt lonely.

So, to keep things short and direct, he avoided asking Nico about the whole what-do-you-like thing.

 _Do you think I overreact?_ He genuinely asked instead. Thinking he may have sounded a bit too pathetic, he changed his wording right after. _Actually I know I do. Just wanted to hear your opinion._

 _don’t know where you got that from, but you seem pretty normal to me._ Nico replied. _by my own standards._

Percy felt himself relax while re-reading Nico's text for the third time. He smiled a little, relieved.

He was kind of glad Nico still didn’t know him enough to have seen that side of him, at least.

_Wdym?_

_I mean, I definitely deviate from the norm much more than you do, at least that's what I’ve noticed._ Nico explained.

And Percy couldn’t argue with that.

He still wished he could be like him, from time to time. He had never lingered on that thought too much, though, because it would never fail to trigger his inferiority complex. _Okay, honestly didn’t expect that._

_you haven’t answered my question._

_What question?_

_why are you asking me weird questions while I’m trying to beat one of the final Bloodborne bosses? cause it sounds like something happened._

Percy gazed at the message before turning around to lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Nico had the right to ask, and he had been stupid thinking he would have ignored the reason behind the questions. Percy was extremely reluctant to tell him, though, opting for a deflecting answer and just leave it at that.

But Nico was still the only available person around who might have understood what he was going through.

Snorting, he stared back at the screen, feeling like it had been a stupid idea in the first place.

He wouldn’t have been ready to dive into that kind of conversation ever, but he couldn’t really think about another person he would have been comfortable enough to talk about it except… Nico.

He sucked in whatever shitty feeling still sat in his hesitant fingers and tried. _Guess it kinda did. I don’t like talking about this stuff tho._

_are you talking emotions?_

_Nah those r fine. That’s work for my therapist._

_then what?_

Percy took in a deep, calming breath.

He rewrote the message three times, each of which he approached the subject from a different angle _. I was just thinking_ , he sent, before continuing _. When did u know u liked guys? Were people mean to u and shit?_

He started playing with his shark-tooth necklace while staring at the typing sign below his contact.

_I guess I always knew. I didn’t have a name for it until I found out gay people existed at around 8. but people didn’t like me regardless so I wasn't ever really out._

_So people didn’t know?_

_they kinda did at some point. I guess they just assumed with the way I dress and stuff and they weren't rly kind about that. don’t think they ever had confirmation of some sort tho._

Percy wasn't pleased to hear that.

He had expected something in that fashion, but he was sure he didn’t want Nico to go into detail. He was still relatively calm and he would have liked to keep it that way.

_Sorry to hear that boo_

_it’s ok. I got over it. so something did happen huh._

He pressed his lips together. _Like I said. Kinda_

_A friend called me a twink and I lashed out and I shouldn’t have_

_and how is he still your friend?_

Percy sighed quietly through his nose.

_I can't just dump him man, he's like my brother. We always stick together_

_you can dump him. you just don’t want to._

_Man it's just not that simple_ , he argued. He wasn’t yet annoyed because he didn’t expect Nico to really understand when it came to Travis. _Still idk what to do cuz I feel bad. I have this thing where I get angry for the wrong reasons sometimes._

_idk about you but I usually get angry at assholes calling me a fag._

The fact that Percy had already suspected Nico to have gone through something like that didn’t help a bitter feeling from rising in his throat.

He chose to ignore that for the sake of the argument and made a mental note to ask for names and numbers one of those days.

_I get that but we always joke that way. It's just weird I went crazy when it was probably just a joke yk?_

_ok, let’s put it like this. is he gay in some way?_

Percy frowned. _Don’t think so. Y?_

_then he shouldn’t say that in any context. that's just him being a jerk._

Percy was familiar with that word-claiming reasoning when it came to his gay friends.

What was foreign was applying that reasoning to himself, instead.

_Isn’t it weird I’m just now calling him out?_

_someone was going to get angry at him anyway if he goes around calling people that._

Percy admitted Nico did have a point, in the end. Again.

_So I shouldn’t apologize?_

_why would you ever do that?_

_you talk like you jumped him without any reason when it’s him who was in the wrong in the first place._

_def don’t know the full story but if that's all there is then I don’t get why you’re even feeling sorry._

He breathed in and then out slowly.

He wanted to believe Nico was being as genuine as he had always been, considering he had no reason to lie. One thing he appreciated most was Nico’s habit of never sugar-coating truths, so he let Nico's words sink into his brain to at least help him pull the brake on his impulse to apologize.

It still did feel like he was making up excuses for why he had acted the way he did, but he kept himself from that getting to his head.

He smiled a little to no one, resuming his typing.

_Got it. Thank u._

_nbd. anything else? otherwise I got a clocktower ghost boss to take care of._

Percy smiled again, fondly. _Nah. Go get em ghostie._

He avoided coming across Travis' chat for the rest of the night while going back and forth between his YouTube and his Reddit feed until he felt tired enough to sleep.

The morning after, he woke up to Nico's 4AM text messages ranting about how he had already tried to beat that same boss at least seven times without success and what that meant for his own already fucked up sleeping schedule. That made Percy smile amusedly as the first thing, thinking about a sleep-deprived Nico elaborating strategies to defeat a stupid _Bloodborne_ boss until morning on a school night, because he could just be s ridiculously cute at times.

Much less because of the sleep-deprived part, and more because of his dedication to anything game-related.

Percy teased him back about it in the most loving way possible, spending his lunchtime searching for that Lady Maria boss out of curiosity while avoiding anyone in the school except Leo.

“Man, what's up with you and the brothers?” He asked Percy discreetly at some point, bending over from the other side of the table. “Is it ‘cause I agreed to give them Spanish reps?”

Percy frowned, suddenly confused.

His head perked up towards Leo and away from his phone on the table. “Why would I be angry about that?”

“Ah-ha!” Leo rejoiced, casually pointing at him with an apple in his hand. “So, what are you _angry_ about, exactly?”

Percy let out an exasperated sigh. “Man, forreal, I don’t wanna have this conversation right now,” he dismissed him, ignoring the question. In the meantime, some messages started popping up in their group chat. “It’s already a hard job not thinking about it.”

Leo hummed as he swiftly checked on his phone. “Alright, keep your secrets,” he ended, faking disinterest. “You’re gonna be there tonight?”

Percy focused back on his half-eaten lunch before replying. “Where?”

“Charles’s. They think they're gonna get some KFC and then head to Jake's place or something,” he recited, scrolling through the texts. Then, he locked his phone and bit on his apple. “Actually, nevermind, they got KFC. Shouldn’t have asked.”

Percy looked at him, then made a face. That did sound like a nice plan.

Despite that, he went back at munching the salad still on his plate. “I don’t know, it's a school night and everything. I probably shouldn’t.”

Percy looked up after a few moments of silence, finding Leo with an over-the-top shocked expression plastered on his face, complete with a hand in his heart. “Who are you?” Leo whispered dramatically.

Percy cracked a side-smile, amused, before averting his thoughtful gaze back to his food. “I’m just not feeling it,” he replied, honest. “You have fun, though.”

“Impossible, man, I got my _hermanita_ to take care of today. Dad's out working in the evening and I gotta check on her ‘cause she's slacking off at school lately,” Leo explained in his usual tone. “She’s in that phase where she thinks about boys too much.”

Percy mindlessly hummed, mouth full of bread. “Can't blame her,” he stated.

He cringed at his own self right after.

“Love that confidence, Oldie,” Leo approved, patting Percy's cheek a couple times. “Own your gayness and all that.”

“Say that again and your History essay goes in the toilet,” Percy lamented, removing Leo's hand from his face, making the other giggle.

“I could use some company, though,” Leo admitted, giving his apple another bite. “You wanna come, or you’re still pretending to be a good boy?”

Percy couldn’t lie; that did sound inviting. But it also felt very shitty on his part to choose Leo over everyone else.

He should have just got over it and moved on instead of making up problems and excuses not to go.

“I just told you I'm not feeling it,” he replied after a moment of pondering, completely ignoring his own advice. “Isn’t it weird if I come to yours when they expect me to be there?”

“You wish you could, though,” Leo swiftly replied, inquisitive.

Percy raised his eyebrows at him. “That’s a bold statement.”

“Nah, just a feeling,” the curly-haired boy replied, a piece of fruit still in his mouth. “Is this a yes or a no? ‘Cause the yes entails the whole _Lord of the Rings_ saga and weed. Just for your information.”

Percy’s eyes perked up.

He observed the other boy's pretend-disinterested expression, and couldn’t help the tiny smile appearing on his lips. A feeling of pride and affection directed towards blossomed in his chest while he remembered that instance when Leo had confessed Percy was one of the few people Leo didn’t feel alone with.

Realizing that was probably Leo’s way to tell him he needed company, he looked back down playing with some lettuce leaves on his plate.

“You kinda had me at _Lord of the Rings_ , not gonna lie,” he replied, tone low.

Leo turned his head towards him then, smirking happily.

He puffed out his chest, satisfied, and observed his apple before taking a bigger bite. “I always knew you were smart. You just have to look for it.”

Percy chuckled, ignoring the teasing.

They found themselves into more of an annoying waste of breadcrumbs than a food fight, avoiding it from escalating to the point of being kicked out from the cafeteria again.

Their next period started shortly after, and they both walked to their respective classes.

Percy proudly completed his surprise Spanish quiz without effort, and thanked his past self for spending time and effort conversing with Leo from time to time. He made a mental note to thank him for that in the evening.

He also evaluated the possibility to talk to him about the Travis issue, but he was honestly too fed up with the situation from thinking about it for whole days. He was also acutely aware of Leo’s weird talent of reading behind people's words that would leave Percy creeped out every time. One couldn’t simply keep secrets with him despite trying to.

Despite that, he had already agreed to go, and canceling plans didn’t really sit right with him. So, unfortunately, Percy couldn’t do anything but passively accept that possibility as he traveled to Leo's house that evening.

He eyed the familiar three-story, reddish building from the opposite side of the road and found Leo on his phone, waiting for him in front of the metal door. They greeted with a handshake before Leo led him upstairs, as usual, passing the first floor where Leo's grandparents lived and from which came a strong smell of steamed meat and the loud chatter of the TV.

He had always found himself way more comfortable in that small and chaotic home than Jason’s big and empty house, but Leo's house had always felt like a second home. It was inevitable, considering they had known each other since second grade.

“ _Papi_ kindly allowed me the TV controller when I told him you were coming over,” Leo mentioned as he closed the door behind Percy. “And my grandma’s cooking _tamales_.”

Percy slumped on the living room's sofa, letting his backpack fall down his shoulder and to the floor.

He looked over at Leo who had already started his search for the complete collection of the _Lord of the Rings_ movies in the cupboard below the TV.

“My dietitian wouldn’t like you stuffing me up every time I come over,” Percy commented, lighthearted, relaxing on the soft cushions. He gazed at the many family pictures hanging on the walls out of habit. “You never come have dinner at _my_ house, dude.”

“That's ‘cause I don’t feel comfortable having your pretty mom cook for me after I almost lit your house on fire,” Leo casually replied, to which Percy folded his arms behind his head, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he considered. “We were both high. I was lucky I didn’t electrocute myself with that broken toaster.”

“Man, if someone was giving you money for every time you’ve had a domestic near-death experience, you'd own two Teslas and a Soho apartment,” Leo teased, transporting the block of disks on the sofa after inserting the first one in the reader.

Percy just scoffed at the comment, recognizing he had no way to defend himself and he was probably better off remaining silent.

Looking at the starting screen of the movie, he frowned. “Wait, didn’t you have this on your laptop last time?”

Leo hummed, thoughtful. “Y'know, you get a kind of satisfaction buying your movies instead of downloading them illegally,” he replied. “Also, the collection was on sale on Amazon or some shit. I couldn’t just leave it there.”

Percy smirked, amused, still observing the TV screen. “But you still have _The Hunger Games_ series on Google Drive?”

“I just didn’t find a reason to buy it yet,” Leo declared with a dismissive gesture of the hand, shutting him up as the music from the movie started filling the room.

Towards the end of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , there was a loud knock at the door. Leo swiftly got up from the sofa pausing the movie and calmly walked towards the front door.

“ _Desculpa, abuelita,_ ” Leo cheerfully greeted from the door. “Was watching a movie.”

She replied with something in Spanish Percy didn't catch before he heard his own name being mentioned. He decided to finally get up and greet Leo’s grandma after that.

Approaching the door, he saw the short woman handing a smoking baking pan to Leo, advising him to be careful before glancing at Percy.

“He keeps getting taller than you, _nietito_ ,” she observed with a tiny, sly smile on her lips. “You'll have to catch up soon enough.”

“What happened to good things coming in small packages?” Leo muttered back as he started to step towards the kitchen. Percy opened the door wider to let her in, closing it behind her with an amused smile.

“ _Hola, abuela,_ ” he greeted in his most natural voice, to which she looked at him proudly, slightly raising her chin.

He was still getting used to talking in Spanish with her, but that was a start.

“ _Mi nieto_ is still giving you lessons?” She asked, not moving from the entrance.

“Yeah. I mean, sometimes,” he admitted, raising his shoulders and leaning on the doorframe. “I'm still taking Spanish classes in school.”

“Good, _changuito_ ,” she concluded, shuffling towards the kitchen. “I can hear that. You'll show me better next time.”

That gave him more validation than he would have liked to admit.

He followed her obediently towards Leo, who had just placed the pan on the kitchen table. He was about to lift the wrap layer on top of the pan when his grandma swiftly slapped his hand away.

“ _Ay_!” Leo jumped. “Come on, I just wanted…”

“Leave them. They need to cool off like this and then you can eat,” she interrupted him. “You keep an eye on the steam.”

“ _Vale, vale,_ ” Leo agreed, hissing and checking on his own hand. “Thank you, _abue_. We're so lucky to have you.”

“ _Cortala, tonto_. I got my husband telling me that already,” she grunted, affectionately hitting the back of his head. “You two behave and don’t make too much noise. Your _abuelo_ is about to start writing.”

Leo's head perked up towards her. “Can I read later?”

“No,” she replied dryly. “He needs to sleep after nine. Tomorrow.”

Leo raised his eyebrows and looked back at the smoking pan. “I don’t see a problem with that…”

“ _Ya chole_ , Leo. Just keep an eye on your sister,” she commanded, looking around at the kitchen. “I'll go now,” she announced above Leo's snorts. “Keep some for _mi hijo_ , too.”

“ _Sì, sì,_ ” Leo complied, following her towards the door.

As they opened the door to let her out, she looked back at them and kissed Leo on the cheek before patting it with a hand. Then, she turned towards Percy and did the same, squeezing it.

“You're two handsome young men, _muchachos_ ,” she commented with a proud expression. Then, she pointed towards the sofa. “But hide the _mota_ somewhere else next time. I can see it poking out the sofa, _majes_.”

And, just like that, she was off to the stairs.

The door still open, Leo looked up at Percy. Percy did the same, still massaging his cheek with a hand, looking lost. “So, she saw the…”

“Probably.”

“Uh,” Percy replied, looking at her stroll down the stairs. He waited a moment. “You should probably close the…”

“Yeah,” Leo briskly replied, closing the door and walking towards the living room again.

After that exchange, they sat back in their previous spots and waited for the movie to finish without interruptions.

After another half-hour, Leo brought some of the _tamales_ to Hailey in her room, letting out the Taylor Swift song she was playing on her computer in all its glory before coming back and starting to make good use of the weed in between the cushions.

They had eaten three _tamales_ each and were just past the Gandalf-leading-the-army-against-the-bad-guys scene in _The Two Towers_ when Leo voiced his appreciation with a satisfied hum.

“One of the best scenes in cinematography history,” he commented, making Percy chuckled.

“I mean, it’s nice,” he teased, to which Leo gave him a slight push on the shoulder.

“Don’t fuck with _Lord of the Rings_ in front of me, dude, I won’t take it,” he admonished, picking up his cigarette from the old wood coffee table. “I know Annabeth would agree. She’s a woman of culture.”

“She’s more into that _Space Odyssey_ stuff, man,” Percy corrected, ignoring the soft squeeze in his guts at the mention of her name.

“Whatever. Consider that fantasy,” Leo dismissed him, lighting his joint.

Percy looked at him, skeptic. “It’s sci-fi.”

“Then consider this sci-fi.”

“No, it’s _magic_ ,” Percy argued. “How can you argue with that, son?”

“She’d like it though. You can’t argue with _that_ ,” Leo concluded. “Legolas is a whole meal.”

“Dude…” Percy tried but found himself reflecting on what he was going to say first. Not really liking what he was thinking, he flattened his lips. He averted his gaze. “Okay, fine. Maybe he is.”

“I mean, _I_ can see that. And you know how much I love the female sex,” the other argued, huffing out some other smoke. “Talking about that, how’s it going with your Jersey boy?”

Percy’s mind was immediately being pushed back to their kiss that last weekend, and felt his cheeks gain some more color while butterflies started messing up his full stomach.

“Uh…” he hesitated, his eyes darting from one side to the other of the screen to distract himself. He shrugged as casually as he could manage, hands in his pockets. “Good, I guess. I figured he probably likes me back, so…”

“I _knew_ he’d be head over heels for you, man. There was no way,” Leo suddenly chimed, pointing at his temple with confidence. “So, what’s the next step? Marrying in a cemetery?”

Percy chuckled, amused. “Don’t think so. He’s not that type.”

“Right, you still like ‘em cool and icy,” Leo teased, waving dismissively. “No shame in that. Some of us don’t need the fire.”

“What even makes you think that?” Percy argued, annoyed, before he could process his own huge lie.

He hesitantly turned to see Leo’s knowing look stare back at him, a teasing smile on his lips.

“Lemme present you the exhibits,” Leo started, counting on his fingers. “Anne-beth, Jersey-boy, cargo-pants-lesbian…” he stopped to ponder for a second. He raised his eyebrows as to agree with himself. “Jason…”

Percy stilled, Jason’s name echoing in his head.

“What?”

“Come on, he’s definitely on the list,” the other casually replied. Percy’s blood had instead frozen for a moment or two. “Then…”

“No, what do you mean Jason? Why him?” Percy stuttered, cursing at himself.

Leo delivered him a sly look, pointing at his temple yet again. “Man, I may be stupid, but I’m not blind,” he stated, looking at Percy’s unsettled expression.

“But when…”

“Remember last time at Jason’s pool?” Leo interrupted him.

Percy frowned, thinking back to some weeks before. “Kinda?”

“It so happened that I noticed you staring at Jason like he was one of your mom’s iced cakes and you hadn’t eaten in months,” Leo kept going, to which Percy felt his stomach drop with fear. “Y’know, I try minding my own business, man, but that was such a cinematic moment. Lightning and all.”

“Fuck, man,” Percy muttered, briefly covering his face with his hands and rubbing his eyes. “I was just drunk or something.”

After a moment, Leo hummed. “Yeah, you did seem intoxicated.”

“Leo, come on!” Percy lamented, lowkey terrified of anyone else having noticed as well. He cursed at Connor and his comment about clueless straight guys. Percy had been stupid to believe that in the first place. “It wasn’t like that. I just think he’s kinda…” Percy hesitated on his word usage before fucking it up anyway. “Like, hot. Sometimes. Not all the time.”

“Man, that’s the thing, _I_ think he’s kinda _always_ hot,” Leo corrected him. “Just picture Legolas, but with glasses.”

“Fine, he’s dead handsome, but he wouldn’t want me to think that,” he argued back, voice low, crossing his arms on his chest and finally looking back at the screen. “The staring thing was probably creepy as fuck.”

“Nah, dude, every guy likes to be appreciated. He’d probably thank you.”

“We’re supposed to be brothers, man.”

“You make up too many problems in your own head, _güey_ ,” Leo replied, putting down his joint and wrapping an arm around Percy's shoulders before pinching his ear. “Your homies are supposed to love you unconditionally and that's what we do. Even if sometimes you want to shove your tongue down our throat.”

Percy made a face, hugging himself tighter. “That's a weird way to put it.”

“I'm talking heart-to-heart here. Don't reject me like that,” Leo lamented, giving Percy's shoulder a couple pats. “You're good, bro. Trust me on this. We got you.”

Percy bit the inside of his cheek while thinking back at the uncomfortable feeling in his guts when passing Travis and his friend group in the hallway, or knowing he was looking in his direction during their classes.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he grunted, more disheartened than he intended to be.

Leo turned to gaze at him with an analytical look.

Percy tried to retaliate. “I'm just saying…”

“So thrasher boy's bothering you again?” Leo questioned, looking surprised. “I thought he went past the acceptance phase.”

Percy shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and was now acutely aware of Leo's arm still around his shoulders.

He shrugged to relieve some of his own nervousness.

“Oooh,” Leo sang before finally going back to his relaxed position on the sofa, looking at the screen. “So that's what the hiding was all about.”

“Rather not think about that now,” Percy confessed, low, arms crossed. “Y'know, good vibes and shit."

“Fuck good vibes, man,” Leo snapped, bouncing his foot on the ground. Then, he stopped abruptly. “You kno' what…” he continued, cupping his chin with a hand and squinting his eyes.

Percy then observed as he went through a series of “Nah,” and “I think so?” exclusively with himself before his own expression turned into a questioning, puzzled look.

Leo finally turned towards him with a “Well, nobody’s paying me,” before crossing his legs on the sofa and pausing the movie (which made Percy thoroughly worried).

Grabbing his joint from the table and lighting it up again in between his lips, he turned towards Percy and looked at him in the eye before asking. “You remember when T told me to go back to the border and that shit at that party in ninth grade?”

Percy frowned, reluctantly trying to remember.

He made a face at the memory of a drunk Travis surrounded by his friends and some random girl on his arm calling Leo some ethnic slur Percy refused to remember. “That's something I'd like to forget.”

“If I can’t, you can’t. But the point is,” Leo continued. “I kinda found him crying on the second-floor bathroom after that, ‘cause I had ignored him all night and shit. And then I was like, what’s this pretty white boy crying about, y'know? And it was actually fun watching him cry for a minute or two,” he kept on, looking up as if reliving the whole scene. “’T was nice. ‘Til he realized I was there, and he just hugged me.”

Percy frowned even more. “What?”

“Yeah. Didn’t know why he did that at first. Now I know he was probably feeling guilty and that was his way to say sorry for being a piece of shit,” Leo kept on, laying an arm over the backrest. “Sometimes people are assholes. But sometimes they act like assholes when they're actually not, and at that point, they’re gonna feel guilty anyway and they’ll change.”

Percy listened to Leo's monologue, trying to keep his attention from diverting towards the background noise of his grandma’s voice downstairs.

When he managed, he remembered the kind of sick enjoyment he had gained from Travis’s fearful look. That gave him some kind of satisfaction, but the bitterness stayed. Because Travis definitely hadn't realized the amount of fear Percy had felt in the first place, and how that small comment had embodied, despite on a small scale, every reason for why he had refused to recognize his own self in the first place.

“I kinda want him to feel bad, though,” Percy admitted, raising his shoulders and looking away at the still frame on the TV.

“He _needs_ to feel bad, Oldie. It’s you who needs to move on from that,” Leo asserted confidently, pointing at him. “If he sees you tiptoeing away, he wins. If you just do your own thing, you win. He'll come to you if he's a real man.”

Percy gazed at Leo's cryptic, kind of serious expression. It had been exactly this that Percy had been scared about; still, he had to recognize some familiar wisdom in Leo’s words that his conscience was asking him to listen to.

He breathed in, thoughtful.

If he had no intention of confronting Travis about it before, now it was even less. He wasn't going to risk breaking down that unbothered façade he had built around now that he had just convinced himself not to apologize.

He shrugged. “Who knows,” Percy brought his arms back behind his head, slouching on the sofa. “Maybe he's crying to Simple Plan right now.”

Leo patted him on the shoulder. “Nah,” he replied. “It's probably Blink-182 or some shit.”

Percy chuckled before Leo pressed play again to resume their movie marathon.

He didn’t think about Travis anymore that evening. Consequently, he let his sense of inadequacy slowly escape from him while waiting for the third movie to end. When it finally did, though, he realized he had probably relaxed a bit too much and was going to be late coming back home.

Needing to rush home before his mom could start getting worried and worked up, he gathered his stuff and traveled back home on the first bus he could find.

He almost managed to not feel wrong anymore when walking back inside his home, the smell of cooked vegetables still lingering in the air.

He closed the door behind him as he removed his shoes by the door and buried his headphones back into his jeans’ pockets. When placing his backpack near the door, he heard his mom and Paul’s subdued conversation coming from the kitchen.

He frowned when he heard a gravity in his mom’s tone that he didn’t like.

What confirmed his suspicions of it not being a happy and casual conversation was the fact that they hadn’t greeted him yet, despite definitely having heard him coming in.

His stomach dropped when the conversation died down as he walked the remaining distance between the entrance and the kitchen.

He looked up at his mom, who was standing by a chair while clenching its sides. Paul was sitting down at the table instead, with a bothered expression on his face.

Fear started kicking in when his mom briefly glanced at him before breathing in. “Percy, sit down.”

He almost forgot to move, still taken aback by his mom calling him by his name.

He did, however, step towards the kitchen table and carefully sat down on the chair. She sat down in front of him.

“Did something happen or…” he tried, voice dying in his throat when he saw his mom extracting a small, airtight plastic bag from her pocket and placing it on the table.

Something in his guts twisted when he recognized it as being one of his weed bags.

He didn’t talk. He really just stared.

“You have an explanation for this?” She asked, looking at him with one of the most serious looks Percy had ever seen her wear.

He breathed in, carefully and briefly.

This had happened before, he reminded himself. Both times, though, he had managed to get over with it mentioning one of his friends placing it inside his backpack as a joke, and convincing Leo to testify for him. The second time, instead, his mom had grounded him for a week when he was fifteen, during which he had had the time to carefully plan his hiding spots and build a second floor inside his backpack.

His mom had never rummaged once through his backpack, so that meant he had made a mistake somewhere along the process.

Trying not to panic, he thought about all the different excuses he could come up with to at least lighten the grave mood his parents had created to convince him to confess.

“Where did you find it?” He asked as casually as possible, trying to buy time.

“In one of your pockets. That’s not what I asked,” she pressed on, gazing expectantly at him. “Do you have an explanation for why this was in your pants in the first place?”

Well, he did.

But of course, there was no way they were simply going to accept him carrying drugs around for his own personal consumption. It didn’t matter he used that only when he was stressed, or with his friends.

His legs kept on bouncing below the table, and he started picking at the skin on his fingers because he was just now realizing there probably was no way out of that situation.

“No,” he replied, tone low and defeated.

His eyes gazed at the tiny bag, angry at it for even existing and at himself for letting something so small and stupid get in the way of the smooth running of his life once again.

Admittedly, he couldn’t lie to his mom. Not anymore. Not when he still needed her trust and support to not feel like a complete failure in everything he did.

She remained silent for some moments, during which Paul straightened up on his chair and joined his hands together on the table.

Then, she exhaled slowly. “I thought we already had this conversation. So why this now?”

Now that, Percy didn’t know.

He couldn’t do anything but shrug and briefly avert his gaze. Not uncaringly, but with genuine cluelessness of his own reasons.

“Mom, I swear it's only for a few times, I'm not addicted or something…”

“I don’t have a huge problem with you smoking this, Percy. I do have a problem with you being seventeen and having promised me you wouldn’t touch this again until you were at least twenty-one, and then hiding it from me,” she interrupted him, tone almost sad.

Percy couldn’t bear hearing that, but he put effort into not letting it show.

“I couldn't just tell you!” He argued, spreading his arms.

“I would have preferred you telling me instead of finding it out like this,” she argued back, pointing to the bag still on the table. “You _promised_ me, Percy. I decided to trust you as your mom, because I know you're a good kid. Now I wonder what else you have kept from me in the meantime.”

Percy's sense of guilt grew exponentially with every single word.

He honestly just wanted that conversation to be over.

“Mom, I didn’t keep anything from you, I swear to God,” he promised, desperate by that point. “It just was hard sometimes, and I felt like I needed something to cool down a bit, and…”

“Do you need medication?” She suddenly asked, making him stop rambling.

“No!” Was his first, impulsive reply. Realizing that sounded more like a tantrum than an actual answer, he tried reformulating. “We already tried it, mom, you know about the rebound effect shit!”

She shook her head. “We didn’t try all the options because you refused to try them out,” she corrected him. “And you know what I think about medication. Don’t think I liked seeing you like that.”

“I hated it, too, and that's why I don't want to go back and try anything else!” Percy replied, animated. “It was just a few times, it’s not even a regular thing,” he lied. Then, he joined his hands together. “Please, mom, don’t put me back on meds.”

She gazed at him, then at Paul.

He looked over at her with a serious look, which bothered Percy more than a little. He usually didn’t have a problem with Paul being present during their family moments, but this was different. It didn’t make any sense for him why she should consult _him_.

This was their thing. Not some random dude's.

“We'll discuss this with your psychologist, honey,” she concluded, making him feel like he had just sunk ten feet below the ground.

“ _What_?” He stared at her. “You can't do that without my consent!”

“I said we're going to _discuss_ this, nothing else…”

“Well, I don’t _want_ to discuss this!”

“Percy!” She stopped him, commanding, slamming her hand down the table. She looked straight into his wide eyes with determination. “We don’t have any other options at the moment. You lost your privilege to refuse this when you broke your promise in the first place.”

He tried instilling more sense in any of them. “Why can't you just ground me and shit? Why does it have to be this?” He asked, praying he still had enough influence on her to make her change her mind.

That didn’t work.

“Because that didn’t work the first time, and it definitely won’t work now,” she stated, in a tone that didn’t expect him to talk back again. “If medication is what's best for you, you will at least try it out since I'm still responsible for you until you're twenty-one.”

Percy stared at her with disbelief. He scoffed, low. “You can’t make me.”

She stared back. “If that's for your own good, I will,” she concluded. “Know that I'm very disappointed in you.”

Percy gazed at her, his guts twisting harder with anger and guilt before she saw her get up and turn around. At that point he got up, too, and stormed to his room, shutting the door loudly behind him.

He stood in the middle of his room, hands over his face and gritting his teeth. He groaned, plunging on his desk chair before pushing the backrest down so that he could stare at his ceiling.

After minutes of deep consideration and his leg muscles hurting from making his chair turn around non-stop, he concluded that his life had become a huge mess.

Then, stopping on his chair and staring at his light-blue ceiling and at the small fluorescent stickers observing him from above, he realized that it didn’t seem right. Because his life had always been a mess.

He had just always made an effort to patch it up as best as he could, pretending to be a normal kid, a good child, a great boyfriend. But that, he told himself, had stopped being the case at some point.

He was left questioning when had he become that careless, chaotic mess, and when the hell had he allowed himself to be so stupid as to think he could hide his mistakes and bad habits behind that same façade he had tried to build.

Because he had always tried so hard to be average, but all those resurfacing issues were probably just a sign that he wasn’t meant to blend in with the crowd in the first place. And he knew some people who would have been happy being outsiders.

Personally, he had always dreaded that label.

Because that would have meant there really was something unfixable about himself; that he was wired backward and needed to stick with that chemical mess brain of his until he would have died (probably earlier than the majority of other people, too, since the statistics had definitely no interest in lying to him).

Now he needed to face the fact that what he had always labeled self-medication was more of an addiction to his mom, and that he couldn’t do anything about his psychologist going to “strongly suggest” him to be on meds again.

He honestly didn’t even know why it made him _that_ angry in the first place.

But there were many things he still didn’t seem to get about himself in general, and thinking about them certainly wasn’t among his favorite activities.

The new issue to think about was to make his parents understand he was fine and that he could manage without pills. He didn’t need any more weeks of sleeplessness, rebound effects, and tics. His mom was probably just searching for any kind of punishment that would actually work.

An uncomfortable feeling still sitting in his chest, he looked at his computer screen.

That definitely wasn’t the time for him to game, but those were special circumstances. A compulsion to do anything else that wouldn’t involve quietly thinking about his life was begging him to grab his controller and game away until he would have been too tired to even stand.

And he had no reason to hold it back.

For once, he didn’t push for Nico to join him. Despite really wanting him to, because the other boy would have probably been the best antidote for his self-deprecating thoughts, he decided to leave him alone and deal with himself the only way he knew how: distracting.

So he gamed before collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep without changing his clothes, headed to school the next morning blasting music from his headphones in between lessons to keep himself awake, avoided Travis all day (because that would have deserved too much of his already drained mental energy), and traveled back home watching YouTube videos and spent the evening replying to Reddit posts until his mom and Paul came home from work.

His mom had apparently gone back to normal, but Percy couldn’t help noticing how she wouldn’t look at him in the eyes during dinner, and how she didn’t seem truly interested when she asked him if he had managed to start reviewing his readings to start prepping for finals.

He was still convinced all his “self-sabotaging” habits all had the aim to make him feel a tad bit more normal; but still, he couldn’t help feeling shameful.

So, he kept the whole situation outside of Nico’s knowledge.

He kept their conversations light and mostly about Nico himself. Which was hard, considering Nico tended to do the opposite anyway. Sometimes it would just become a back and forth of “I asked first”, and it would take a series of persuasive sentences for one of them to finally break and reveal whatever issue he had.

Despite it being annoying from time to time, Percy knew he had no right to complain considering he was the first one to actively participate in it.

He had no intention to hint at the reason why he seemed to have something else in his mind.

And that was, he still hadn’t asked Nico out.

Percy had stupidly agreed to just get over with it as Annabeth had suggested, but he just now realized how difficult it was to even just plan his proposal. He did enjoy the usual face-to-face, but knew he would have needed to wait an undetermined amount of time before he would have seen Nico again. Which mostly made him sad along with slightly relieved, since he still found comfort in the undefined not-friends-but-not-quite-boyfriends space.

At least he was pretty sure he had stepped out of the “friend” label.

Because friends didn’t kiss each other.

He ignored the voice telling him “well, it depends”, burying it back inside when he received a message from Jason asking him to hang out at his the following afternoon.

Percy was quick to accept, before making sure Travis or Connor had not received the same invitation.

After that, he fell asleep at around 1AM because of thoughts about all the wrong people kept swimming in his mind, and at that point, he started wishing for something, _anything_ ¸ help him calm down from the dozen unclosed brain tabs bothering him with whatever unfinished business he had left scattered around himself like dirty laundry.

He was still eager to put those same thoughts to rest when he stopped in front of Jason's door the day after.

The sun was still relatively high in the sky, and the chaotic traffic noise around him definitely wasn’t helping him keep away from the chaos in between his ears.

Needing other people to cool off and get over himself was another one of the reasons why he tended to dislike himself. Because, not only did he let his personal life get in the way of his school and his duties, considering every single mishappen tended to worsen his inattentiveness, but he also didn’t seem to come to useful conclusions by himself most times. Thinking about his seemingly unfixable issues tended to increase the weight of his dad’s ego on his shoulders, despite he always brushed it off reminding himself that his issues were unchangeable, while his dad’s had simply been left unsorted.

But, even believing that it was hard trusting himself not becoming what he had loathed over the years.

Shaking himself off his thoughts and jumping down from his longboard, he finally rang Jason’s doorbell.

His hands found his pockets and his eyes found his reflection in the golden handle, staring at his deformed image until his friend opened the door.

Percy’s head perked up, already taking a step to walk inside. “What's good, glasses?”

But, Jason didn’t move from the doorpost.

Percy frowned, but the other boy interrupted him before he could voice his question.

“Wait,” the blonde told him, crossing his arms. He let a silent sigh escape his nose. “I know you're going to get mad. But don't take this the wrong way.”

Percy’s brows kept furrowing, hard, trying to understand what Jason could be talking about. He couldn’t deny the confusion and nervousness hearing his friend so serious.

His eyes scanned Jason's living room, catching movement on the sofa. He froze for a moment, staring at Travis-fucking-Stoll sitting on the sofa, not even looking at him. Connor sat on the white armchair, instead eyeing the door with an uncomfortable look on his face.

Jason had evidently noticed Percy’s change in expression, because he rushed to explain. “I didn’t want to risk you not coming, but you gotta settle this, so…”

“What the _fuck_ , Jason?” Percy spat.

Not really because of Travis being there. But because Jason had lied to him.

He hadn’t come prepared, and he definitely didn’t think that whole thing was even needed for his own peace of mind. “Is this your way of settling things? What’s this, kindergarten?”

“Man, I didn’t know either,” Travis started, standing up from his seat before Jason could say anything. “I tried telling them this was a bad idea, but…”

“I don't _care_ , Travis,” Percy interrupted him abruptly, still glaring at Jason. He was honestly the only one he needed explanations from. “I'm talking to superiority-complex-jerk right here.”

“Percy, I’d like to explain,” Jason replied, calmly. “You have to come inside, though. I got my reasons.”

“Sure you do, asshole,” Percy grumbled again, slightly pushing him away from the doorway, reluctantly walking inside. “You always get something out of it.”

Jason didn’t reply.

Percy only heard him sigh dryly from the door, closing it behind him as Percy walked towards the seats and plunged on Jason’s armchair, crossing his arms and avoiding Travis' looks. He met Connor's eyes coldly, to which the other averted his gaze to focus on Jason sitting down on the sofa.

There was silence as Jason exhaled, eyeing Percy and joining his hands together.

“Me and Connor know about what happened,” Jason started. “Travis told us.”

Percy scoffed. “What, is this a way to tell me you feel guilty?” He sneered, glancing at Travis. “Gimme a break, man, I don’t need excuses.”

“Won't you just listen, man?” Travis replied, impatient. “This wasn't fucking easy for me either.”

“Yeah, about that, I'm sorry you're a self-important asshole, dude. I really shouldn’t have…”

“Percy, let me speak,” Jason interrupted him, authoritarian. He put a hand on Travis's shoulder to stop him from talking back. “This is why I wanted you both here, ‘cause we need to settle this. I don’t want your beef to cause trouble in the group…”

Percy scoffed yet again, louder. “Are you hearing yourself, man?” He hunched forward, incredulous. He let out a dry chuckle. “Have you considered me not wanting to settle this? Do I have to put up with his shit because I'm ruining the vibe? Well, I'm fucking sorry for…”

“Here we go again,” Travis grumbled, crossing his arms and averting his gaze.

Percy looked at him with spite before Connor started speaking. “That's not what he meant, Percy, let me explain,” he chimed in, getting up from his chair and walking the distance between them. He sat down on the coffee table, facing him, joining his hands together. “We don’t want you to dump us because of Travis. We care about the group, and it would be a shame if you just started avoiding us because of one T's lame jokes.”

“That didn’t even sound like a fucking joke,” Percy crossed his arms as the other boy explained, looking at him skeptically.

“It was,” Connor and Travis spoke naturally at the same time.

“Inappropriate and offensive jokes have kinda been Travis' thing since he was in third grade,” Connor continued. “Come on, you know about that.”

“So I'm supposed to just suck it up, right?” Percy inquired, bitter.

“No,” Connor shook his head. “No, I'm saying he should sincerely apologize, and we'd like you to accept the apology in hopes he won’t do it again. That's on you, though.”

Percy’s gaze traveled back and forth between Travis's uneasy expression and his brother's sincere one.

Despite he recognized Connor being genuine, he had trouble thinking Travis could deliver him an actual genuine apology. That just wasn’t his style.

“Dude, why should I force him to apologize if he doesn’t want to?” He argued back, cold. “Lame jokes are his thing. He's gonna do it again, so why bother?”

“That's not necessarily true,” Jason suddenly spoke.

“Since when are _you_ even defending him?” Percy asked him, baffled, but Travis started speaking before he could receive an answer.

“Percy, listen,” the boy spoke. “I didn’t mean anything with what I said. You know I didn’t want to offend you.”

“Well, what if you fuckin' did?” Percy talked back, annoyed. “You're gonna tell me I'm too sensitive or some shit?”

“I'm fucking trying to apologize, man, why'd you gotta…” he complained, stopping when Connor turned around to glare at him. Lips tight, he looked at Percy in the eye and remained silent after averting his gaze. “I can't do this right if you keep interrupting me.”

“Don't play me, man, you couldn’t do this anyway because you're not _sorry_ about it,” Percy chuckled without irony, glaring back at him. “I can usually tell people being genuine. And you're not.”

“I _am_ sorry about it, man! Do I have to kneel down to prove it to you?” Travis pushed on, raising his voice. “It was a stupid fucking joke and I shouldn’t have said that knowing you…” he hesitated. “You…” he gestured towards him with a hand.

Percy raised his eyebrows at him, waiting. “Yeah, I'm what, T?”

“I mean, you like dudes, and all that.”

“That’s a weird way to put it.”

“I didn’t want to call you that, man,” Travis admitted, bothered, averting his gaze.

Percy snickered. “Didn't know bisexual was a bad word, man, sorry for mentioning it,” Percy spat sarcastically. “Guess I’ll swing both ways from now on. Or play for both teams. Does that make you uncomfortable?”

He caught the glimpse of a small, amused smile on Connor's face.

Travis lowered his gaze. “I didn’t _mean_ …”

“What I'm getting is that you don’t mean anything you say, T, so how am I supposed to trust you saying sorry?” He got up from his armchair. He knew being too emotionally charged made it impossible for him to have a mature conversation, so he spared everyone the rest of the pointless conversation. “Fuck words, man. I only trust facts from now on,” he concluded, hands in his pockets and walking towards the glass doors to the backyard. “I need a break.”

Luckily, nobody tried to stop him as he walked outside.

He closed the door behind himself and walked past the pool to the adjoining section with the picnic table. He sat down on one of the benches, extracting his phone from his pocket.

Spinning it around on the table, slouching down with his head resting on his hand. His right leg bounced restlessly under the table and the silence around him was making him feel uneasy thinking about what the others could be talking about in the living room. It surely was better than hearing Travis's sour tone when Percy was the only one supposed to be bitter about the situation.

The thing was, Percy wasn't angry about that joke at the skate park. At least not anymore.

He had clearly been annoyed, but he wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Everybody knew it was pretty difficult to end up on his bad side. If you did, you had either did something really bad to him directly or someone he cared about, or you were just, generally, a really trashy person.

Travis wasn’t either of these things.

They could all agree that what he said hadn’t been pretty or funny. But the main point was that Percy had never once heard him apologize or taking genuine responsibility. Leo had just confirmed his initial suspicions, and there needed to be something wrong with that. Percy was tired of keeping up with the guy’s need to receive negative attention to feel good about provoking a reaction. Travis clearly needed conversations like that to happen, or he wouldn’t have changed.

And Percy didn’t need to suck it up as he had always done anymore, because when he heard Travis' voice in his head multiple times during that week, reminding him of how people felt entitled to behave like shit towards him, and Nico, and whoever didn’t conform to society's standards, he finally got angry.

And that made him realize that he wasn't supposed to sit quietly anymore, because it wasn't him who needed to change. It had to be people like Travis, in some way or another.

But he didn’t have the patience to explain all that to him. It probably wasn't his duty, anyway.

The guy wouldn’t have changed his mind if the President had talked to him about it.

Percy didn’t realize he had sat there for more than fifteen minutes, pondering about the right time to head back inside and face that conversation again, until he heard the doors to the backyard opening.

He only realized the time had passed when looking at the time on his phone before quickly fidgeting with his open apps as he heard steps coming closer.

He caught a glimpse of a tall figure standing to his left, but he refused to look up.

“Can we talk now?” Travis's voice reached his ears, and Percy’s head perked up towards the other.

He stiffened a bit on his seat, but didn’t let Travis notice. He shrugged, feigning indifference. “Sure.”

He started getting up when Travis stopped him with a hand. “No, I mean here. Those two give me anxiety.”

Percy glanced up again, following the other with his gaze when he sat back down in front of him. He saw the other take out a rolled cigarette from his pocket along with a lighter.

Percy exhaled from his nose and sat back down again, arms crossed on the table. “What’s up?”

Travis briefly glanced at him while he lit up the cigarette.

He was shaking from his own leg bouncing beneath the table, and he took a deep drag before lowering his gaze to the wooden slats of the table. He started picking at the consumed blue paint.

“I get that I've been an asshole,” he began, the remaining smoke traveling out of his mouth. “I really get it. Just tell me why you don’t believe me.”

Percy exhaled again, casually running a hand through his hair and looking to his side. “You've always done stuff like this, T. I don’t expect you to have enough motivation to change from one day to the next,” he patiently explained. He couldn’t deny his own resignation on the matter. “You call people names all the time and you're not guilty about it unless people send you to the principal for talking back, or you're about to start fights. So, I don’t expect you to really be sorry about calling me a twink.”

Travis listened, throwing glances at him from time to time, but never lingering too much.

He put a leg up to his chest, resting his arm on his knee. “How do you know I'm not sorry, man?”

“You don’t ever fucking _apologize_ , dude,” Percy pushed on, gazing at him. “That being sorry?”

Travis gave him an apologetic shrug. “I am apologizing, though, right? So why don’t you believe I'm actually feeling like shit?”

Percy stared, kind of annoyed by Travis not comprehending the emotional point of the situation.

The other shook his head after exhaling some new smoke and spoke again. “Listen…” he tried but stopped himself shortly after. He flattened his lips, not meeting Percy's gaze.

Percy rose his eyebrows. “If you need to say something, just say it,” he encouraged him, bothered. “I prefer people saying stuff to my face. I don’t really care if it's ugly. I thought we agreed on that.”

Travis huffed out the smoke yet again, shaking his head. “Honestly, man, I couldn’t care less you're bi. It wouldn’t change even if you were gay. That's really not my business,” he admitted. His leg was still fidgeting. “Sometimes I just like to tease. And I know that's a really bad habit, and I should stop. I’m already trying to stop. But I wouldn’t ever want you to think that…” he stopped himself again, along with his foot under the table.

Percy reluctantly held himself back to let the other speak.

“… That I’m hateful, or something. That's the last thing I want,” Travis concluded, meeting Percy's gaze.

Percy observed his blue eyes, and couldn’t do anything but begrudgingly deem them genuine. With a serious expression on his face, he crossed his legs on the bench. “You mean homophobic?”

“Whatever you wanna call it,” Travis replied, looking down again. Percy kept on staring at him.

Travis glanced at his eyes yet again, sighing. “Okay, homophobic, a piece of shit, and everything else,” he admitted. “I'm not that kind of person. I can't be that.”

“Because of Connor?” Percy inquired.

Travis resumed scratching at the dried paint, cigarette still burning in his hand. “That, too.”

After a moment of silence, Travis brought his cigarette to his mouth yet again, and Percy gazed at him, puzzled.

He looked at him up and down, as if there could be any hint in his posture to make Percy better understand what the other was referring to.

He found none.

“We clear?” Travis spoke in his usual, lighthearted tone. Percy didn’t even realize he had lowered his voice until then.

After a moment, Percy shrugged. “You do something like that again and I'll cut all your pretty hair out.”

Travis looked at him up and down and at Percy's not-so-ironic smug before regaining his usual smirk.

Cigarette in his mouth, he held out a hand towards him. Percy shook it firmly, squeezing a bit too tight until they were both in a contest for who would have chickened out first.

Percy lost, and they both laughed at the end. They got up after Travis threw his cigarette into the ashtray, and walked back inside.

Walking back inside, he looked at Jason still sitting down on the sofa with a severe look.

Jason stared back, letting Percy catch something in his eyes that he identified as guilt, or hope.

Percy didn’t say anything, though. He just sighed and sat back down, close to Jason this time.

They started hanging out without any hard feelings involved, despite Percy feeling Travis holding himself back when he was about to say anything possibly offensive; which was exactly what Percy had wanted.

During the evening, just before dinner, he received an unexpected message from Nico.

He was asking him to travel back to his house that same weekend.

His dad would have been home, but he wanted Percy to meet Hazel in person before the tournament. She was about to visit him from Atlantic City for a day.

His heart did skip a couple beats when he had finished reading the texts.

Jason was calling him for his turn at Monopoly when Percy read Nico’s last message.

_can you come?_

Percy smiled, unbothered by any of the others’ looks.

_I’ll see you in 2 days, boo._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i'm thoroughly sorry for not including ship content in this chapter but i swear everything else from now on will almost exclusively be That. see you (definitely soon) in the next chapter and thank you sm for reading!!!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i won't even try to justify myself this time. and this was supposed to be the easiest chapter to write. still laughing about that.
> 
> also [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdWOFrFbcz8) is a perfect example of Percy's boss fight if you want a bit of context. genuinely hoping there are no bloodborne fans reading this.

Needless to say, those two days passed by all too slowly.

Percy had stopped avoiding the Stoll brothers at school, but it didn’t exactly feel the same anymore. Travis kept being wary of him and his own comments, as he should have been from the start, which pleased Percy in a twisted, satisfying way. He wasn’t complaining about that, though, because that was what he knew was good character development for him.

Things at home weren’t exactly going that well, on the other hand. His mom was far from still being angry at him, as was Paul, but she definitely kept her promise; she had scheduled an appointment with their family doctor soon the following week. She hadn’t been kidding, and Percy had expected that. But knowing that in advance didn’t ease any of the remaining aversion. He still would have gladly left for college if that meant not being on meds. So, he, too, was keeping on his cold attitude around her.

He didn’t know what he was hoping to accomplish with that. Sure, he also recognized his act as pretty immature on his part. But still, he found his mom’s reasoning silly and senseless in the first place. It wasn’t like he was not going to bash on pills every chance he got.

The school environment was growing exponentially heavier too, and his professors weren’t interested in easing any pressure. They were all about asking which college people were about to apply to and seemed overly curious about the reasons why _Percy_ wasn’t trying to get his grades up. He either avoided the questions most of the time or straight-up lied.

He had smartly crammed his homework into the day before traveling back to Nico’s house, which also meant a whole wasted Saturday at the library. Again. And he was now getting tired of his education issue when he had noticed he had reached a stalling point at _NuOlympus_.

He wasn’t getting worse, but he seemed to have stopped improving when it came to his reflexes and aiming skills. Combat was quick and smooth, but every time he would allow himself to relax within his game, some jerk would pop up and kick his ass like he was the lamest sucker in the whole server.

Still, Hazel and Nico didn’t seem to complain too much about it. They were used to his bad habits just as he was used to Hazel’s concern with sticking together and Nico’s annoyingly slow reaction times.

Now, he was slumping on his seat on the interstate train with his arms crossed and earbuds on, playing with a pen and a random hairband he found inside his pants’ pockets. And he told himself that yes, life could be a pain in the ass, and it would never stop being annoyingly stressful for him, but at least he had something to look forward to.

Right now, it was to finally meet the great _28PLUTO_ (also known by him as Hazel now) in person. Nico had explained to him that she had been his dad’s brother’s stepdaughter since she was a toddler. She would visit him in Italy for the holidays when he was still living in Venice, but she would spend the rest of the year back home in Philadelphia. She was an only daughter and got along with both Bianca and him very well. Still, since he and Hazel casually shared many nerdy interests, it was with Nico she had the tighter bond.

Hazel was only one year older than him, and Nico had mentioned something like, “if it hadn’t been for her and Bianca, he would have probably found himself ten times worse now, after his mother’s death.” Percy hadn’t dared to ask why or how; he was better off not knowing much about Nico’s worst life struggles.

He had this awful tendency to feel other people’s feelings. And it could quickly become too much when it came to people he actually cared about.

One long hour later, he was finally standing in front of Nico’s door. Then, it randomly occurred to him he should have probably put more effort into his clothing choice that morning. And that because, despite being pretty sure of Nico’s disinterest in Percy voluntarily meeting his dad, it was probably supposed to happen soon anyway.

And that was probably going to be the day. He ignored the shivers running down his spine at the realization and hastily rang the golden doorbell at the side of the door.

It didn’t take long before he heard one, two, three locks opening on the other side and the door opening with a creak.

Eyes falling on the shorter boy’s tired expression, eye bags, and usual, messy black hair, Percy didn’t even try to distract himself.

“You didn’t ask who it was?”

“’T was pretty obvious,” the other muttered calmly, his straight nose curling up. “The last message you sent was five minutes ago. Also, your train was supposed to arrive twenty minutes ago...”

“Okay, child genius, I get it,” he teased affectionately, stepping inside as Nico stepped aside to let him in. He closed the door behind Percy with a snort when he reminded him to take off his shoes. “Hazel should be here in half an hour or so. She’s coming by train, too.”

Leaving his shoes at the entrance, he followed Nico’s light steps up the stairs. “Great. So your dad’s out working?”

“He’s got some stuff to take care of in his office. He said he’ll be back in the late afternoon,” Nico explained, turning to enter his room. Then, he scoffed, almost talking to himself. “Something tells me he’ll be home early.”

Percy’s body temperature suddenly dropped a few degrees.

And, thanks to that, he realized he was probably scared shitless. For what reason, he had no idea. Nico was just a tiny version of his own dad, anyway. It always happened that way.

He felt weird for thinking that right after, standing at the entrance of Nico’s room, looking at him lost.

Nico turned around to frown, looking at him up and down. “What?”

“Nothing,” Percy blinked, starting to walk towards Nico's desk and dropping his bag onto the floor. “Are there any… I don’t know… things I should know about your dad?”

Nico’s furrow deepened, forming a line in between his brows. He slumped down on his desk chair and crossed his hands on his lap. “Apart from the fact he's a misanthrope and produces coffins?”

“Yeah, apart from that,” Percy replied unenthusiastically, crossing his arms and laying against the desk.

Nico’s brow relaxed then, leaving him with the same tired expression as before. He moved his gaze to his computer’s screensaver, making his silver earrings dangle when he turned his head.

And Percy was probably starting to like them way too much.

“If you're thinking of ways to make him like you, don’t bother,” was Nico's honest response, his hand searching for his mouse. “It's useless, anyway. He doesn’t like me either.”

Percy wasn’t sure what answer would have helped him feel calmer.

But it definitely wasn’t that. Nico could have told him his dad liked skinheads, and he would have gladly gone out of his way to shave all his hair off and swing by a Hot Topic before dinnertime. Apparently, though, good old him was the only thing he could present to the man.

He tried ignoring the tiny voice telling him it “wasn’t the most excellent possibility” and gave up to his urge to pace around the room.

“How does that even work, though?” Percy tried to casually ask, standing up and taking steps around the room. “How can he not like you?”

“Isn’t there a difference between loving someone and liking them?” Nico observed, clicking away with his mouse. “You can love someone, but not necessarily like them.”

Percy scoffed. “Is that a confession?”

“No,” Nico swiftly replied, already sounding annoyed. Then, he sighed, probably recognizing Percy’s joke. “Anyway, he made it clear he doesn’t approve most of the stuff I do.”

“But he's cool with…” Percy hesitated, looking up from some of the shelves. He turned to Nico's chair. “You being gay?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t care what I like. I never even had to come out to him,” the other confirmed.

Now, that was a huge relief. Being homophobic would have added a whole other layer of dislike for the man Percy really didn’t need. “Glad he's cool about that...” he interrupted himself, turning to the bed, noticing an unfamiliar object near the windowed corner of the room.

“Wait, is that a guitar?” He impulsively asked, surprised.

He saw Nico's chair swiftly turn around to face him, then looking in Percy's direction. “Oh.”

“What do you mean, _oh_?”

“Forgot to put it back,” Nico muttered, matter-of-factly, getting up to pick it up from its stand.

Little did he know, Percy couldn’t let something like that go even if he tried. “So you _play_?”

“Sometimes.”

“Man, quit being all casual about it!” Percy lamented, moving closer to Nico as he picked it up. “Can I hear something? You can’t be shy about it. Not with me.”

“I only do it when I'm alone,” Nico informed him, walking quick steps towards the door. “And I know just a few songs anyway.”

“Let me hear just one then!” Percy followed him, keeping his tone low and persuasive. “My mom plays guitar, but she doesn’t do it that much anymore. I miss it like crazy.”

“Then ask your mom,” Nico concluded, opening the door to what looked like a (really orderly and filled with wooden furniture) studio. In its opposite corner stood a dark brown, seemingly old piano.

“Can you play piano, too?” He kept on, excited.

Nico carefully placed the guitar down inside its original case before Percy noticed his expression harden.

“Used to,” he replied, quiet. “My mom played it a lot. My dad did too, but he always preferred the guitar. He taught me, but I didn’t particularly care, so I dropped it after a while. Now I play when I got nothing to do.”

Percy's stomach slightly sank when he noticed many photos of a woman on the dark, massive wooden desk to his left.

As Nico closed the case, he stepped closer, trying to not attract Nico's attention. One of the photos was inside an oval silver, flowery frame, and the woman had one of those Mona Lisa smiles, small and cryptic. She looked young and had long, black hair tied in a half-bun, dark, downturned eyes, and freckles on her cheeks. Her gaze was fixed somewhere to the side of the camera, expression calm and stern.

The other photos were similar, but her smile was in none of them. She didn’t seem sad, either, though, which was comforting.

“Percy,” Nico called, startling him. He hastily took a step back and looked down at Nico's questioning expression. “Half of those are my grandma's. My mom's in the one with the wedding dress.”

Percy rapidly looked back at the pictures. “Oh.”

Now it made sense why they were all black-and-white.

“So is this her?” He pointed at the photo with the hugest frame on the wall, squared and of white-painted wood.

“Yeah,” Nico stopped at his side then, arms crossed. “And that's my dad. They were twenty-five or something.”

Percy scrutinized the picture, taking in its details and finding some similarities between Nico’s mom and what he assumed was Nico's paternal grandma. The only difference was the absence of freckles and a darker, olive complexion in the former. She also had the most gorgeous smile.

“She's really pretty,” Percy mindlessly commented to himself as he focused on Nico's dad's almost-smiling face instead.

“Yeah, she was,” Nico agreed, already heading towards the door.

Percy reluctantly followed after throwing one last glance at the woman’s elaborate lace white bodice in the picture before he walked out, too.

It took a moment for him to remember why they had entered the room in the first place. “I'll find a way to hear you play.”

Nico scoffed, which sounded more like a snort. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

“Don't know if you noticed, but I can be pretty convincing if needed.”

“You never had to convince _me_ ,” Nico spoke as he entered his own room again, directed for his seat.

“I kinda did,” Percy replied in a casual tone. Then, he found himself hesitating. “Well, it all went kinda shit afterward but, y'know…”

Nico spun around on his chair, confused. He threw him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”

Percy stopped near the bed's outline, and his hands quickly found his hoodie's pockets. “Uh, well, I kinda coerced you into coming with me to the City, and…” He stalled. Nico wasn't looking any less skeptical, though, so he kept going. “Come on, you mean it was peaches and cream or something? Fine, it _could_ have been worse, but I seriously thought I had made the worst mistake of my life, that you were going to collapse somewhere, and you’d have never dared to stick your nose outside again, and…”

“Is that how you think it went?” Nico cut him off, looking at him with his hands crossed on his lap. He had the most quizzical look on his face.

Percy blinked at him. Then, he carefully sat down on the bed, quiet. “Was it not?”

Nico scoffed lightly and then quickly averted his gaze to the side, incredulous. He lightly shook his head and looked down at his fidgeting hands. “Do you think it's your fault that I'm like this?”

The other waited a moment before answering that apparently easy question. “No, I just meant…”

“Good. ‘Cause it's not,” Nico swiftly interrupted, throwing him a quick glance. “I decided to come with you because I thought your reasoning made sense. You definitely couldn't have done anything to stop that from happening. You didn’t coerce me into doing anything I didn’t already choose for myself.”

He stared at Nico's set expression and felt a knot finally coming undone, just at the tip of his stomach, while listening to the hint of genuine sweetness in the other's tone.

He suppressed a tiny smile at the renewed lightness in his chest before he replied with a “Right” and averted his gaze himself. “I’m sorry, anyway. I probably should’ve handled things better.”

“You couldn’t have. And it's not like you did something wrong,” Nico muttered back, casually shrugging, gaze still downcast. “You did have good intentions, so.”

His head finally perked up then, finding Percy's green eyes staring unblinkingly at him. He delivered Nico a genuine smile. To Percy's delight, Nico's lips turned upwards to the side in an attempt at a reassuring smile, which made his insides instantly turn to mush.

“You know,” was Nico's low comment as he went back to inspecting his black leather bracelets. “Your smile is crooked to the right.”

Percy melted just a little bit more inside. Then, he let out a giggle, suddenly self-conscious. “Yeah. Some people tell me that.”

After that exchange, Nico decided to cut to less mushy conversations, asking Percy if he would have liked to sit and game while waiting for Hazel to arrive. Percy only half-heartedly agreed, considering he found himself not really minding cheesy conversations. Which was weird, considering Annabeth had always pointed out his overall lack of (or straight-up dislike for) romanticisms.

He still felt grateful when Nico picked up a fake-leather stool to sit right beside Percy’s seat, arms brushing from time to time. He especially wasn't complaining about Nico touching his hand around the controller to catch Percy’s attention while playing. Also, being that a psychological horror game Nico persuaded him to try, he was thankful for the few reassuring interventions.

Percy had rapidly gone all the way down the fear rabbit-hole going through a couple startling jump scares when the doorbell rang.

Nico turned around to look at the door before hastily getting up. “It's Hazel.”

Percy let out a discrete, relieved sigh as he paused the game, jumping up before excitedly following Nico down the stairs. He could clearly feel his heart beating faster in his chest and decided it had to do with Hazel’s arrival more than the game itself.

He turned to Nico before he could let her inside. “Does my hair look good?” Percy deadpanned.

Nico threw him a sullen look as he opened the last lock. “Like you could fix them now.”

Percy smirked humorously at the comment as the door opened, revealing Hazel's smiley face looking back at them with bright eyes.

“You guys!” She cheered, instantly wrapping them both into a tight hug. Which was still kind of awkward, considering she was no taller than Nico's height.

Her hair smelled like citrus, and Percy wrapped his free arm around her as he chuckled.

“It's so good to meet you, Percy!” She greeted, sunny, as she stepped back. Nico exhaled patiently, holding his ribs with a hand before letting her inside. She looked up at Percy, scrutinizing him with her brown eyes. “Were you this tall the entire time?”

“I’m not used to feeling _this_ tall for sure,” he joked back, hands in his pockets and self-conscious all over again.

“Excuse me?” Nico questioned, throwing him a threatening look.

Apparently just remembering Nico being there too, Percy was about to retaliate when Hazel beat him on time. “Don’t be bitter about it, coz, at least _you_ still have to grow a bit,” she teased, messing up Nico's hair with a hand, giggling when Nico grunted something back in Italian.

“So how’s it going?” Percy asked as he followed her to the kitchen, where she stopped to open the fridge and look inside.

She moved some of her shoulder-length, thick braids out of the way. He observed her tiny, bronze hair rings when she hummed back. “All good! There are usually very few people moving from Philly to here, so the trip was pretty chill,” she replied, upbeat, taking out a heavy jug of juice. “You’re from New York, right?”

“Manhattan,” he clarified, hands in his jeans’ pockets as he laid against the wall. “I never knew you were from Philly.”

“I never mentioned it,” she explained, shrugging. “Privacy and stuff. Especially on streams.”

Nico finally walked inside, past Percy and to the high stools around the kitchen island. Percy thoughtlessly followed him with his gaze. He got lost inside Nico’s thoughtful expression for a moment when he realized Hazel was still talking.

He luckily got the last part of her sentence. “… You know, I’m actually kind of surprised the king of entertainment here doesn’t have a Twitch channel,” she concluded, filling up her glass.

Percy unlocked his gaze from Nico’s fidgeting hands then. Then, he shrugged, tight-lipped. “You think I should start streaming?” He casually asked, glancing at her with his head low. “I don’t know. I’m not that consistent. And I don’t really know how to engage with people I can’t see.”

“I think it’d be cool to try, though,” she replied, confident. She kept on, sipping her juice and smiling at him. “I was actually thinking about inviting you to a session one day. You got that potential.”

Percy flattened his lips in an awkward expression, and then glanced at Nico. The younger boy was still absentmindedly playing with his own thumb rings.

“What do you think, Nick?” Hazel called, turning to look at her cousin, lifting herself forward on the granite surface with her arms.

Nico hinted at a shrug, which Percy interpreted as indifference. “If you say so.”

“Oh, come on, anything else?”

“What should I say?” Nico questioned back, looking at her. “I think it’s cool if he wants to do it. You both talk a lot, so.”

Percy’s gaze suddenly rose to look at the other’s face. “Hey, what?” He exclaimed, offended, as he noticed Hazel trying to keep a straight face. “I mean, fine, I know I do, but it’s not _that_ much…”

“Well, that’s kind of what streaming’s about, so,” she allowed before Nico could retort, letting Percy get by with just a quick glance this time. “So, what about giving it a try, P?”

The older boy turned to look at her again, taking in her persuading, reassuring smile before silently contemplating that possibility.

He shrugged after pondering for a moment, feigning a cool attitude. “Why not, I guess.”

“Great!” She concluded, raising her glass. “Let’s drink to that. Then we can go see how you do in _NuO_ alone.”

He couldn’t help but smile back at her, satisfied with his own choice. He stepped closer, stopping across from her on the table, crossing his arms beside Nico’s. “Yes, ma’am.”

Glancing at the younger boy beside him, he noticed the other quickly lowering his gaze yet again. And of course, the tiny smile on the other’s lips managed to awake the butterflies in his stomach all over again.

After that, Percy kept his promise for Hazel to observe (and possibly boss him around) his solo matches. Luckily for Percy, though, he managed to distract her halfway through, suggesting they played that _P.T._ horror together, since the experience from before had advised Percy he probably wasn’t going to make it through, alone. Nico refused to play himself, and so did Percy, to which Hazel half-heartedly chimed into their discussion to take the controller in her hands, commenting on the fact that Nico was probably doing that just to laugh at the both of them. Which Percy was already convinced was true, but he avoided to tell her. The dark atmosphere surely added to the eerie setting of the game, and Percy had the conformation it didn’t just affect him when Hazel almost literally jumped from her seat when a shadow appeared from behind a door. Both her and Percy spent the following hour cursing at Nico for his weird taste in games, despite the hint of a smirk appearing on the younger boy’s face from time to time, telling Percy he was _definitely_ enjoying the experience.

Nico’s familiar alarm finally went off at some point after they had stopped playing that nightmarish game. Hazel had started telling Percy about her past trips to Italy, back when she was smaller, and Nico and his sister were still living in Venice. They ordered some take-away burgers from a nearby place Percy had never heard the name of, and ate together at the coffee table in the living room watching some recorded streams of other _NuOlympus_ pro players on YouTube. By the end, all that talk about strategy and competition had chased away most of his huger anyway, so Hazel ended up eating the remaining of Percy’s chips and Nico’s vegan burger. He let the irony of that lighten up the growing pressure on his shoulders when thinking about the upcoming tournament.

It was maybe just an hour after they had finished eating that Hazel announced she was about to make herself some tea, and Nico took the opportunity to drink some coffee instead. Percy was better off not drinking either of those, so he stuck to some juice and chips for his nervous eating habit.

They chatted away about their favorite games, casually and without particular emphasis. That was until Nico mentioned _Bloodborne_ , at least.

“What?!” Hazel exclaimed at some point, her dark eyes going wide at Nico from across the dining table. “You still haven't beaten that Lady Maria?”

Percy turned towards the younger boy, surprised at Hazel's shocked expression. He already knew, of course, but he thought Nico had got past it considering he had stopped mentioning it.

He found Nico’s eyes downcast, a hint of a scowl on his face before replying.

“You have just _seen_ me play. You don’t know how hard it can be. It's a pain in the ass,” he muttered, staring at the contents of his mug. “I'm thinking about dropping the game and just get over it.”

Hazel grunted then, pushing herself forward on the table with her arms. “You're not doing that, Nico, that's crazy,” she retorted. “You've been playing that game since ages. What's it, like, a year?”

Nico scoffed. “Nine months.”

Percy's eyebrows perked up as he swallowed his Cheetos.

“And you're giving up, coz? No frickin' way,” she pushed on.

“What's so difficult about it, anyway?” Percy chimed, curious, still loudly chewing. He was sure the glare Nico threw his way should have discouraged him from asking. It failed its purpose when Percy responded with a questioning glance. “I'm serious, boo, what's all the fuss about?”

“He’s right, P. It’s no joke, but it shouldn’t be impossible either,” Hazel replied for his cousin, looking at Percy and slumping back down on her chair. “It's been going for something like weeks now.”

“And there's a _reason_ for that,” Nico clarified, looking back at Percy with another warning gaze, fidgeting with his cup. “When I’m close to killing her, she pulls out that fire-blood attack that's…” he sighed heavily, then, briefly massaging his eyes. “I go out of synch every time. That's how she gets me.”

Percy listened with special attention to the last part. “Out of synch?”

“Yeah, that’s what Bloodborne is all about. You memorize the phases of battle and build your strategy around that.”

Percy hummed, finally remembering their past conversations. He glanced back at his Cheetos and buried his hand inside the plastic bag. “Why don’t you show me?” He proposed, grabbing another handful of chips. “Not to be nosey, but I’m not the best at theory.”

“Yeah, Nico, maybe we can both help. Three heads are better than one,” Hazel agreed, looking back at Nico after taking a sip of her tea. Nico made a face, making her roll her eyes. “Come on, Nick! I thought you got over that I-never-lose phase.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nico argued back, drinking from his mug.

“Lemme guess, it was _not_ a phase,” Percy taunted, making Hazel giggle before covering her mouth.

The younger boy threw him yet another exasperated look before flattening his lips and getting up from his chair. “Whatever,” he stated, bothered, directing himself towards the stairs. “I don’t get how you two can possibly help me, but fine. I'm starting the game.”

Percy’s gaze glued to him as he disappeared on the stairs. Hazel's pleased look met him when he turned back to her. His lips turned to a side-smile, making her smirk back as she gulped down the remaining tea from her mug, placing it on the table with a faint thud.

“I expected you to have noticed,” she spoke, getting up.

Percy looking up at her while chewing. “What?”

“How upset he gets when he doesn’t get his way,” she lowered her voice, making her mug spin around with a finger. “He gets all bothered and stuff. I don’t think he’s really angry at anyone except himself, for some reason. Probably ‘cause of his expectation to be good at everything he puts his mind to.”

He scrutinized her expression, thinking back at the multiple times Nico had fallen silent when he had been knocked down in _NuO_. Or how annoyed Percy saw him get when watching him play supposedly fun stuff, like _Mario Kart_ on his Nintendo. Because seriously, who gets worked up about _Super Mario_?

He held back a chuckle. “Hard not to notice,” he agreed, thoughtful. “Is he always been like that?”

She rose her gaze to think. “I've only really known him since he was seven, but…” She shrugged. “Yeah. I guess he's always been competing with himself.”

Percy averted his gaze from Hazel's hand moving her braids back behind her ear to look at his half-finished bag of chips.

He was hyper-aware of the tiny smile that creeped onto his lips, but he couldn’t help it.

He had just remembered all the fights he would get himself into in elementary school. All because he thought that Nathan kid beat him at a running marathon by cheating, and the weird, smug looks his classmates would give him. He had always been competitive in everything he did, but had stopped hoping to win when he understood he was just not made to be in the top three. And that went for school, sports, or any other activity involving competition.

Nico possibly feeling the same sounded weird, though, considering he apparently _could_ win everything he put his mind to.

“Those chips aren’t going to levitate in your mouth, PerPer,” he heard Hazel tease from behind him.

He blinked twice before hastily getting up. “Right. I mean, I know,” he stuttered. “Just had a moment.”

“Be sure not to have those when we’re competing,” she giggled back, and started walking up the stairs. “I’m kidding!” She called right after, making Percy let out a silent, nervous curse.

He cared enough to at least close the chip bag before leaving it to rest on the table, swiftly grabbing his glass of juice and gulping it down while he a muffled conversation started upstairs.

He was entering Nico’s room soon after, finding him sitting cross-legged on his chair, Hazel beside him. The boss-fight setting in the game was the only light in the room apart from the usual, tiny lights above Nico’s bed and the younger boy had an almost bored look on his face. When Percy stood behind his chair, he crossed his arms on its backrest as a rest for his chin. He observed the ancient-looking, vacant and dusty room Nico’s hooded character stood in, before recognizing Lady Maria’s character design hunched down on the chair at its center. The battle began soon after her introductory lines.

“She’s so pretty, man, I’m kinda sorry you have to kill her,” Percy casually observed as Nico first avoided her double-sword attack and went in for his own. “What's she, like, a ghost?”

“Kind of,” Hazel replied instead, watching the screen with her cousin’s same attentiveness. “She's technically dead, but she has blood in her and stuff. I never understood how that worked.”

Percy hummed, scanning the scene with particular interest to Nico's character’s pacing. The younger boy was deadly quiet instead, probably too focused to even think of a reply. Noticing the main character solely jumping back repetitively to avoid the Lady’s attacks, he frowned.

“Why aren't you parrying?” He asked, perplexed.

“You can only do that with a gun,” Nico replied mechanically, like he had repeated that many times already. “It's inconvenient anyway.”

Percy stopped himself from vocalizing his doubts when Hazel kindly started explaining, instead. “You only get twenty bullets and twenty healing items each time, depending on your stacks…”

“It’s blood vials,” Nico quickly corrected.

“It's the same thing!” she dismissed him, turning to glance at Percy’s attentive look. “That's why you can't rely on parrying, anyway. It's best to keep a distance and then attack her at close-range before she charges you.”

As she spoke, Percy kept his eyes on Nico's character. He could see the other trying to get behind her before going in, being left dodging in hopes to get close enough to her to get an attack in. No wonder why the battle was taking so long.

“Man, don’t just wait for her to hit you,” he suggested, frustrated.

“If I didn’t do just that, the battle would be over in half the time.”

“Yeah, because _you_ ’d get her first!”

As to prove his point, Lady Maria's character delivered a diagonal frontal blow to Nico's character just as he said that. The younger boy muttered out a curse as he swiftly backed off and checked on his health status.

“Health,” Hazel spoke, in a tone that Percy knew fairly well from their team matches.

Nico did as told, using just one vial to regain only a third of his HP.

Percy had to keep himself from rolling his eyes. “You got twenty potions, dude, you can be more generous.”

“Percy, you don't know the mechanics of the game, you can't _tell_ me…” Nico finally spat, right before the Lady's character stabbed herself with both swords and impossibly stood still for a moment. Then, Nico fell quiet once again then.

“Okay, phase two,” Hazel threw them off their bickering, bending over to lay her forearms on the desk in front of her. “Remember to dodge to the right.”

Percy was starting to get restless, but he tried not letting it show. His leg was already bouncing on the floor, and the fingers of his right hand were restlessly tapping on the chair top. He exhaled silently, and it sounded more like a sigh. “What's phase two?”

“Attacks have wider range. It's more difficult to avoid them,” Hazel explained again, gazing unblinking at the screen. “They also deal more damage. Nick, keep an eye on your health.”

“I know,” Nico muttered, focused.

Percy let out a brief hum then, and watched as every single blow of Nico’s enemy brought with it a long streak of blood coming from both her swords. He carefully observed as Nico skillfully dodged majority of them, until Percy saw her get into position and stay still for a moment.

The next attack came as a single, immediate streak of red, knocking Nico's character out.

Nico's reaction was to let out an exasperated sigh and resisting the impulse of letting his controller fall in front of the screen. Bringing his hands to his face, he rubbed his eyes. On the screen, the “You Died” message was still flashing red. “I thought I could avoid that…” Nico mumbled to himself, evidently upset.

“It's all about timing, Nick, you know it already,” Hazel tried comforting him, tone patient. “You'll get the gist of it. It’s made to frustrate you.”

“How many times have you even tried?” Percy asked, looking down at Nico laying back on the chair, observing his messy hair.

“Lost count around ten,” he replied expressionless, crossing his arms. “It's so much more annoying than I thought it would be.”

Honestly, it was baffling to him that Nico hadn't just given up already. He deserved an award for determination alone.

“If it was anyone else, I'd suggest you just find some shortcut or easy way out,” Hazel turned around to face Nico, one leg on each side of the stool, arms crossed. “But you’re getting better each time. You're dealing more damage.”

“It's never enough,” he said dryly, almost glaring at the screen. “And I cannot just waste all my vials in here. I'll need them later on.”

Percy moved to the side of Nico's chair then, arms crossed and gaze thoughtful. “How many vials would you use?”

Nico glanced up towards him, then back to his computer with a blank expression. “Ten, at most. I didn’t use them at all at the start, and I started at around eighty. Now it's probably half.”

“And the bullets?”

“I'd probably stop at five. I got no intention of wasting them on _this_.”

“So, if I get this right,” Percy started, counting on his fingers. “You gotta beat her using five bullets, ten vials, without parrying, and changing combat style in between?”

“There's also the third phase,” Hazel mentioned, to which Nico made a face. “Attacks are a mix of blood and fire, so they deal more damage, and linger in the air. The rest stays the same.”

“Why don’t you try again, just using more vials?” Percy inquired, looking back at Nico.

“Unless I'm sure I can kill her, I won’t risk draining my stacks because you tell me to do so,” Nico concluded, inflexible, reaching to grab his controller again to restart from his last-saved spot.

“That's gonna take ages, man!” Percy finally exclaimed, turning towards him. “You're gonna waste much more items if you keep doing it this way. Do the math, you can’t…”

“I don’t care, Percy,” Nico cut him off, cool. “I'm just doing this because you asked me to show you, anyway.”

“That's a load of bullshit,” Percy muttered back, annoyed. He hadn't taken Nico's comment personally; he was just tired of his fixation for his own rules and dismissing suggestions because things had to be done his “own", correct way.

He reluctantly moved back to his spot behind Nico’s chair when he felt Hazel’s eyes on him.

“Why can’t you let Percy try, then?” She casually asked Nico.

Both the boys turned to face her for a brief moment in surprise, before Percy opened his mouth to speak.

Nico preceded him. “What’s the use?”

“Well, maybe he figures out how to do something different and stuff,” she explained, seemingly impatient. “Or _you_ do, looking at it from the outside. Makes sense to me.”

That didn’t seem like such terrible idea to Percy’s ears, but he could bet Nico wouldn’t have been happy with him drying up blood potions. “Yeah but, I mean, I don’t really know how the controls work…”

“That’s no problem,” she cut him off. “You can have, like, a couple initial trials where you figure that out and then you’ll be ready to go,” she looked back at his cousin expectantly, raising her eyebrows at Nico’s silence. The character on screen was already climbing the stairs to the boss room. “Nick?”

After a moment, Nico sighed. The character on the screen stopped running, and the shorter boy waited for Percy to move a step backwards before turning the chair around, scrutinizing him. He had a hard, sort-of-skeptical look on his face, and Percy refused to say anything as he held Nico’s stare.

“Do you want to do it?”

Percy silently accepted the challenge, trying to place the tenseness in his muscles. He shrugged in an attempt at chasing it away. “Sure. I can try.”

Nico’s lips flattened, eyes falling on the controller in his hands. “No vials or bullets the first two rounds,” he glanced up at Percy’s attentive gaze again. “Are we clear?”

“Transparent,” Percy replied, straight-faced.

He didn’t hesitate when Nico handed him the black controller, waiting for the other boy to stand up and give up his seat before. Percy glanced at Hazel’s curious, almost eager look to his right before he crossed his legs sitting down and tried experimentally moving the character around.

Soon, Nico started vocally explaining the commands from behind him. “They’re basically the same as _NuO_. The only difference is that L2 is for shooting, I guess,” he mentioned, and his weight resting on the back of the chair, keeping it from moving. “You can figure out the rest.”

Percy scoffed. “I’m basically gonna die, anyway.”

“Trust me, it’s not the controls you should be worried about,” Hazel got closer, crossing her arms on the desk yet again. “Try a bit of everything.”

“But don’t shoot,” Nico pointed out, serious.

Percy let out a chuckle. “Thanks, boo, don’t think I got it the previous two times.”

“Just making sure,” Nico replied, impatient. “Just walk to her and wake her up. Battle will start after that.”

Making the character walk towards Lady Maria’s corpse sitting at the far end of the room, he did as told. Right after her introductory dialogue, his character was being placed on the opposite side of the room, watching her ominously walk the distance separating them.

Rapidly dodging to her right, he got lucky a couple of times when he delivered his first attacks on her back, before she swiftly evaporated to reappear not far in the room. After that, a quick, piercing attack from her part stunned his character, and it took a moment before he was back at trying to dodge her following blows.

“She’s a piece of work, that’s for sure,” he muttered, trying to come off unbothered. Actually, he was already thinking that had been a stupid idea.

“If you get her as soon as she’s about to lower her swords, you should be good,” Nico suggested, seeming strangely pleased. “If more than a second passes, you need to move. You cannot stun her anymore and she’ll hit you first. That’s the only way.”

“I figured,” Percy casually replied, moving to his side to avoid yet another blow.

It kept on going like that for another minute until, while trying to avoid another one of her attacks, he miscalculated his own space for movement, allowing her to kill him.

Percy grunted. “I was literally still moving, man!”

“Now you get it, don’t you?” Nico questioned, calm, from behind him.

Percy let out a heavy sigh, laying back on the chair and waiting for the game to restart.

So, at least he now knew how the controls worked. He didn’t try to accidentally shoot, which was already more than he had hoped for. What he now knew, though, was that dodging worked only half the time, and that he considered parrying as (possibly) the only way to go, still.

As he started yet again, he felt like he was already getting better. Nico was still suggesting keeping her at a distance, but Hazel was effortfully trying to make him shut up and letting Percy try out what did and did not work for him. He made a mental note to hug her after that just for her support.

Still, he couldn’t understand Nico's whole issue with timing. Sure, there evidently was timing to her moves allowing you to back off before she could deliver her attacks, but Percy didn’t think that was exactly what he should wait for. Actually, Percy’s opinion was to not “wait for" anything when dealing damage to her in battle. And that was because she was too fast to even avoid some of her attacks; spending half of the battle dodging and then trying to break into her defense would have simply taken on too much time.

Then, he remembered Nico's instructions for parrying. As she rose her swords to attack, he quickly shot a bullet from his gun. He ignored Nico’s first warning about it, shooting yet another one. This time, as Nico had mentioned, she stilled for some moments before being able to move again.

Nico spoke again, louder this time. “Percy, I _told_ you…”

“I needed to try, man, chill out,” Percy cut Nico off before he could go on about him wasting his resources. “Just found out the perfect time to stun her.”

“Forget about doing that all the time,” Nico spoke, sour. “Bullets are limited for a reason.”

“But you _need_ them, boo,” he argued back just as the Lady delivered another blow, making his HP fall to critical rate. “Anything else I need to try out before she kills me?”

“Definitely won’t tell you now,” Nico bit back, voice low, as the game’s character was being killed off for the second time.

Percy snorted loudly, again. A couple more powerful hits and he would have been close to the second stage of battle. Maybe now he got why Nico seemed so addicted to this game.

“Cut it off, you two,” Hazel commanded, looking at them both. “Percy, you actually did really good!”

Percy adjusted on the seat, his legs already uncrossed and his feet placed firmly on the floor. He didn’t need to think about it that much, anymore. The procedure would have been to dodge once, attack, shoot, and attack again. He had ten vials available, but there was no fucking way he was going to ignore the other remaining ten if there had been a possibility for him to win. He’d rather deal with an annoyed Nico than burning defeat.

So, he stretched his shoulders and placed both his elbows on the armrests of the chair, lips breaking into a confident smirk. “Watch me do even better, girl.”

The fight started, and he fired away as soon as he saw Lady Maria raising her arms coming down for her first blow. He broke into her defense with multiple attacks. After that, he successfully retreated back and to the side. He let her run to him with another quick attack before it was his turn to deliver, and at that point she managed to turn around and deal some damage herself. He managed to not lose his concentration, also thanks to the unusual silence around him.

Both Nico and Hazel seemed to have lost their voice as he fired his gun again, stunning her, and repeating what he had done before. The one thing he empathize with about Nico’s strategy was trying to predict the Lady’s movements. The fact was, there was nothing to predict. In Percy’s eyes, she was just really quick, and pretty erratic at times. And that was because games cannot really reason like humans do. She was still an NPC in a game, although a really powerful and annoyingly good one.

But, he had only used four blood vials when she finally stabbed herself with her katanas, starting phase two.

“I’ll keep an eye on your HP for you, PerPer,” Hazel suddenly stated, coming alive from her still position. “Focus on not dying.”

Percy didn’t have the mental resources to also reply to her, but he was confident that wasn’t necessary.

He used Nico's same strategy, delivering as much damage as he could while she was still preparing her blood explosion attack. When it came, he retreated to use a couple vials to go back to an acceptable amount of HP, and then was ready to attack again. No more frontal attacks, so he always dodged to her right, keeping on stunning her with his bullets.

What he still definitely wasn't used to was having limited stamina. Having restricted movement capacity was what annoyed him the most, but he tried to find balance along the way. He let her deliver the same powerful attack he had seen in Nico's previous fight when he simply couldn’t move anymore.

“Two blood vials,” Hazel commanded, urgent. He did as told, not even bothering to look at how many he had left. “You're close.”

Percy just hummed in response, running to her side time and time again to avoid being damaged by the streaks of blood from the swords, and managing to only half of the time. Despite that, he was becoming quicker with his attacks and started guessing when to start backing off.

When a double fire streaks were added to the Lady's attacks, he cursed under his breath as it lingered in the air and burned him.

“How many?” He quickly asked.

“Seven,” she replied, cautious. “Keep going, don’t get in the way of the fire.”

“Keep to her sides. Dodge through when you can’t,” Nico broke his silence with a serious, thoughtful tone.

Percy was so surprised to hear him it almost broke his concentration. One of her fire attacks went right through, burning him, but he was quickly running closer to her again. He avoided replying, also because he had to admit he didn’t quite get Nico's advice. But, he decided to try, still.

As she was preparing one of her attacks, he avoided running to dodge. Instead, he ran _to_ her, and dodged at the last second, passing through her without damage. Saying he was surprised was an understatement, but he had no time to celebrate.

“Another one,” Hazel advised, and Percy was quick to obey and using one of the remaining flasks.

It wasn't long before he unsuccessfully avoided one of her powerful streak attacks; but he had the time to deliver the last two blows after that.

The Lady started screaming in a ghostly, far-away voice before she turned translucent and disappeared through the wooden slats on the floor.

In his peripheral vision, Hazel's jaw had dropped, and had turned to look at Nico in one swift movement.

Percy let out a breath he had no idea he was holding, and felt his muscles melt to the ground before he rose one arm to the ceiling and let out a loud, liberating “Woho!” before feeling pride start to kicking in.

“How the _heck_ did you do that, P?” Hazel exclaimed, questioning him with wide eyes. “I knew you were good, but gosh, that was _everything_!”

He turned towards her, suppressing a chuckle. He shrugged, pointing to the screen. “I told you. You just had to move it.”

When he turned to face the screen, he found Nico standing beside him, arms crossed, glaring at his computer as if trying to figure out what trick Percy had just randomly unlocked to win.

His lips turning into a prideful, confident smile, but he tried covering it up with a smirk. “Didn't expect it, did you, ghostie?”

“Save the game, or I'm going to make you do that all over again until you die,” he spoke, and Percy couldn’t really pinpoint what was it in his tone that was making it sound harsher and content at the same time. He didn’t complain, though, as he walked the character to the lantern that had appeared in the room.

After that, he turned around on his chair towards Nico, calmly handing him his controller.

His eyes searched for the black in the other's, raising his eyebrows. “So, I guess _Ghost_King74_ is accepting suggestions from now on?”

Nico turned to him, finally meeting Percy's gaze for the older boy’s delight. Without saying a word, he took the controller from Percy's hand, briefly letting their fingers brush together. The other had to restrain himself from getting up to kiss him right then and there when Nico’s expression turned into something resembling a pout.

“Maybe,” was his only, hasty reply.

And it was honestly enough for Percy. So, he smiled bright as they all strolled back downstairs and rested on the sofa, where Hazel and him casually found themselves discussing the contents of their respective Spotify playlists. Percy was so pleased to find out about her tastes resembling his own that he didn’t stop rambling about his favorite albums for another half-hour or so. Nico didn’t seem to mind, paying more attention to his phone than anything else. When Percy’s mouth finally went dry, they spent their remaining time taking turns of two playing _Mario Kart 8_ simply because apparently Percy had never even heard of its existence.

Soon after her third victory, though, Hazel announced she was already about to head home. She mentioned having cramped a night worth of study all into that same evening, and it would have taken her approximately two hours to travel back to Philadelphia. Also, her parents were apparently inflexible about wanting her home before dinnertime.

So she packed her few things back into her purple bag, threw it over her shoulder, and turned around to look at the both of them as she stood in front of the door.

She smiled with her brown eyes, one braid falling forward from resting behind her ear. “It was nice meeting you, PerPer,” she stated as she waited for Nico to unlock the door. “I’ll see you soon in the City?”

He buried his hands in his hoodie’s pockets then, sketching a side-smile. “And then after that.”

Realizing how cheesy that may have sounded, he awkwardly pressed his lips together.

He was about to reformulate when Hazel’s button nose curled up a little bit with her upper lip, as she was thinking about something to say. “You know, P,” she spoke, her tone mellow. “Don’t know if you needed to hear this, but I don’t really care about winning. I’m all about participating, differently from your boyfriend here.”

At that, Percy felt his cheeks instantly gain some color. It spread to his ears when he noticed Nico had now turned around, hand on the door’s handle. “Hazel!” He muttered, scolding, his face a pretty blatant picture of embarrassment and surprise. “I told you not to…”

“Sorry!” Hazel exclaimed then, and if she wasn’t being genuine, Percy couldn’t tell. She turned around towards his cousin, a hand in front of her mouth. “It just came out. Won’t happen again.”

“Uh,” Percy cleared his throat, desperately trying to ignore Nico’s red cheeks. He opened his arms and raised his shoulders in a question. “Goodbye-hug?”

She turned around to look at him, and her look softened almost instantly. She giggled, wrapping him in a hug and patting his back a couple times. He smiled as he did the same, briefly squeezing her tight.

“See ya’, surfer kid,” she stated, walking out. She turned back one last time to briefly kiss Nico on both cheeks, which her cousin accepted almost out of habit, before she waved them goodbye and hopped down the stairs to the porch.

As Nico closed the door, they found themselves alone again.

There was silence as they returned to the living room, Percy behind him and strolling towards the sofa.

“You didn’t tell me she’d be so nice to hang out with,” Percy finally mentioned sitting down near each other on the sofa, after Nico picked up the couple Switch controllers.

The other shrugged, his seat a bit further from Percy compared to earlier. Who noticed, unfortunately. “She's nice to everyone, anyway. Even if she doesn’t like you, you'll never know.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Percy stated, trying to chase away the knot in his stomach. He took the tiny controller in his hands. “Everybody likes me,” he teased with a smirk.

Nico scoffed. “I bet my dad doesn’t,” he commented, making Percy turn towards him with a hurt expression on his face.

“I was _joking_ , you jerk,” Percy lamented, affectionately shoving Nico's shoulder. “You didn’t need to confirm my suspects on that.”

Nico let out a breathy laugh. “I don’t think there were ever any doubts,” he continued, holding back a smirk like the asshole he was. “I bet he started hating you the moment you entered his house.”

“You little…” Percy muttered, letting his controller fall on the sofa and attacking Nico's side with tickling fingers.

An amused smile was plastered on his face when the younger boy burst out laughing, much louder than Percy had expected, failing to get a hold on himself.

“Stop!” Nico begged in between laughter, but Percy was already swiftly removing his hand and laughing in satisfaction himself. It took a moment for him to realize he wasn't dealing with Annabeth or any of his friends anymore, and something dropped in his stomach.

 _Shit_ , not again. “Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn't have…” Percy stuttered, eyes downcast, hiding his hands between his thighs and the sofa. He made a face when he heard Nico let out a relieved sigh. “Sorry, hands won’t keep to themselves sometimes and…”

“Percy, no, it's okay,” Nico replied, taking in a deep breath. His cheeks were red and a hand was covering his side. “I'm just very… ticklish or whatever,” he explained, stuttering. He cleared his voice as Percy’s guilty gaze turned towards him.

He frowned, hopeful. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it's…” Nico hesitated. He ran a hand down his face and rubbed his eyes. “It’s alright. It's just weird.”

Percy kept gazing at him, hands still safely pinned down to the cushions. Hesitantly, he let one of them escape and place itself just beside Nico's thigh.

“Hey…” he lowered his tone. “Is something up?”

Nico shook his head. He glanced at Percy's hand, pondering.

Then, he hastily got up from the sofa. “You want anything from the kitchen?”

“Uh…” Percy started. “I'm good.”

Nico nodded, rapidly approaching the kitchen.

Percy's heart sank deeper down, along with his confidence. The feeling reminded him a lot of when he was waiting for Nico to stop hyperventilating outside of that bathroom stall at Penn Station.

He let his hands come to his face as he slouched on the sofa, sliding down to satisfy his urge to bury himself beneath the floor and just die there. Because, fuck, he was trying so hard, really, not to be his typical, annoying self and switch to a cooler version. Nico didn’t need another surprise kiss from him or to hear his mom being referenced at every damn occasion. That whole “be yourself” bullshit didn’t apply to Percy in that setting. And his panicked thoughts were now telling him it would have only been a matter of time before Nico would have decided he just wasn’t for him.

They were just too different. The fact was, Percy liked Nico to be different. He loved it, actually, and he couldn’t stand to think about losing him to himself. And, honestly, how could Nico seem so inflexible yet so okay with every one of Percy’s fuck-up moments? At what point would he have stopped keeping up with Percy’s dumbness?

He didn’t know how much time he spent spiraling down his own thoughts, but when his ears picked up the sound of Nico's light steps, they felt much closer they were just a moment before. Opening his eyes, he saw Nico standing a few feet away, a cryptic expression on his face.

Percy's eyes widened as he abruptly straightened up and removed his hands from his face, clearing his throat.

He felt warmth raising up to his neck and ears as he lowered his gaze as casually as possible and adjusted on his seat.

He rose his gaze to the glass coffee table when he heard a cup being placed in front of him. Surprised, he looked up at Nico sitting down just beside him.

The other had a glass of blueberry juice in his hands, and glanced at Percy's puzzled expression. “You haven’t drunk in a while,” Nico explained, imperceptibly raising his shoulders. “So…”

Percy's stomach filled with butterflies all over again. He let them chase away at least a small part of his guilt.

He delivered Nico a tiny, grateful smile. “Thanks.”

“It's okay,” Nico muttered back, taking a sip of his own juice.

Percy grabbed his own in turn, drinking the contents in one go, mainly to distract himself from the overall silence.

When he was done, he put the cup on the table with a light clink.

“Don't feel sorry about it. I get it,” Nico suddenly spoke, making Percy look at him while he started fidgeting with his hands. “I’m just not used to… sudden stuff. I can deal okay with the rest, so it's no big deal.”

Percy listened attentively, ingraining those words in his memory. He averted his gaze from Nico’s pink cheeks. “It's alright, really,” he scoffed, lightly. “I just keep forgetting, apparently,” he scolded himself, straightening up and looking around for his controller. “I still have to beat you at _Mario Kart_ , though. Don’t think I can forget _that_.”

He tried a smile as he took the controller back in his hands.

Since silence had fallen in the room again, he laid back on the sofa and looked at Nico, puzzled. As soon as he did, he saw Nico quickly averting his gaze from his eyes, making it fall back on his glass.

Percy hadn't noticed before, but Nico had definitely closed the distance between them when he sat down. He was puzzled as to why, but he wasn't complaining.

Then, Nico carefully placed his glass down on the table, beside Percy's, and his cheeks gained some more color.

“What if I kissed you?” He asked, and the butterflies in Percy's stomach went completely berserk for a second or two.

He blinked, chasing away the sudden feeling. He stared at Nico's clearly nervous expression, and a corner of his mouth went up into a tiny smile.

“Y’know,” Percy muttered, quiet. “I think we went past the point you still need to ask.”

The other glanced at him for a moment before briefly smiling to himself.

Percy saw him taking in a breath before he turned around, cupping Percy's cheeks and swiftly closing the distance between them, placing a slow kiss on Percy's lips.

And, God, Percy had waited just that all day long.

He tried not letting it show, but he bet it was all-too evident with the way he let his controller carelessly fall on his legs to grab at Nico's wrist with a hand. He caressed the naked inside of it with his thumb, moving his bracelets down.

At that, the other let a thumb caress Percy's cheek, kissing him again. As Percy felt Nico's tongue on his lips, he instantly opened his mouth to let it in. Inhaling deeply in one last attempt to keep himself together, his nostrils caught on the fruity scent of Nico's breath, the fragrance of his musky body wash, and the faint, woody smell of his clothes, and Percy just _knew_ he was gone.

Nico imitated him, breathing in in between kisses, dragging Percy just a bit closer. And he gladly _did_ , because Nico's tongue was now in his mouth and his brain was so pleasantly quiet yet so full of sparkles going off every time Nico's breath caressed his cheek.

Then, he felt Nico hesitate for a split second before distancing himself.

Percy naturally followed Nico's movements, eyes still closed, before remembering to stay in his place and get himself together, for Christ's sake. Lips tight, he exhaled while slightly moving back, still feeling Nico's hands at the sides of his face.

He was more than taken aback when he felt Nico shift on the sofa, eyes falling open. “What…” Percy tried, following Nico with a puzzled look before he found the other straddling him.

Percy's own eyes met Nico's in awe, when the other leaned down to kiss Percy again.

His breath caught in his throat yet again, and it felt almost too good to be true. _Way_ too good, he thought. A rational part of his brain thankfully started working again, reminding himself to think. Nico had probably never done something like this; or, at least, that’s what Percy assumed. And it wasn’t necessarily a request from Nico’s part, but Percy knew himself well enough by that point to remind himself of the times he hadn’t been able to get a hold of himself; and suddenly it felt terrifying to let go.

He forced himself to cup Nico's face with his hands to stop kissing him before he gently moved his face back. It felt like one of the hardest things he had ever done, but he tried not minding it. He reluctantly opened his eyes, looking up at the younger boy. “Nico, are you sure this… y’know…”

Nico’s eyes found his then, almost impossibly dark, breathing just a bit heavier than Percy himself. After a long moment of their eyes locking, Nico's forehead found Percy’s shoulder.

He heard the other sigh, breath releasing on Percy’s neck. A shiver travelled down Percy’s spine, quick and electric. He tried ignoring it, considering the already compromised situation in his pants.

He hesitantly started caressing Nico’s tangled, bushy hair as he finally managed to speak. “What’s wrong?” Percy asked, swallowing, breathing more deeply.

Nico gently shook his head, not moving from his spot. “Sorry, I…” he hesitated, inhaling sharply. His low voice travelled directly into Percy’s ear as he spoke, and he cursed at the closeness. “It’s weird. It’s…” he suddenly stopped himself, alerting Percy again.

The younger boy swiftly raised his head, looking at an indefinite point to his side, suddenly attentive.

Percy frowned. “What…”

Nico covered his mouth with a finger then, gazing at the big, half-covered living room windows.

“Shit,” he hissed, suddenly getting up from the sofa. “It’s my dad.”

Percy’s eyes widened when looking at the windows himself, catching a glimpse of a figure moving on the sidewalk in front of the house.

He reluctantly got up. “Should I greet him like this or…”

“No, dumbass,” Nico stated with urgency, grabbing Percy’s wrist and taking quick steps towards the stairs. “If he asks, we didn’t hear him coming. Let me do the talking.”

“Great,” Percy mentioned sarcastically, freeing his wrist from Nico’s grip and holding his hand instead.

They almost ran up the stairs to throw themselves into Nico’s room before closing the door behind them.

As Nico shut the door close with a thud, Percy heard what he thought was the front door opening. He looked at Nico for instructions, understanding there was no need when his wrist was being grabbed again and he was being placed on Nico’s desk chair.

“You stay here,” Nico ordered, throwing himself on the bed and grabbing a small book from his nightstand. He opened it, leafing through the pages, a very confused Percy still staring at him.

Looking towards the door when he heard steps approaching the room, he almost jumped when knuckles knocked on the door, asking for permission to enter. As the handle started to turn, Percy was suddenly made aware by his body of the uncomfortable tightness still present in his pants. As swiftly as he could, he grabbed his backpack, throwing it on his lap, covering what might have risked being spotted by the attentive eye.

He was pretend searching for something inside his front pocket when he saw Nico’s dad standing at the entrance of the room at the corner of his eye.

As he turned to look, as casually as possible, he was met with a middle-aged man with eyes and expression as serious as Nico’s, if not graver. His dark, straight, shoulder-length hair was tied behind his head in a low fashion, and his medium-length, greying full beard gave him an older and stern aura.

Percy smiled politely, trying to bury the frustration deep inside himself.

The man’s dark eyes looked at him up and down before he was back looking at Nico, who just indifferently glanced at him, raising his eyebrows.

Percy resisted the urge to say anything, waiting for the other to start first.

“Aren’t you early?” Nico questioned, going back at pretending to read his book.

“Yes,” the man replied, to which Percy couldn’t resist the urge to raise his eyebrows. _No shit_ , he thought. “Is that a problem?” He questioned back with a clear Italian accent.

“No, just thought I’d ask,” Nico replied then. “This is Percy, by the way. He’s the one from Manhattan,” he introduced, pointing towards him on the chair, hands still deep in his backpack.

“Good to meet you,” Percy greeted him. He didn’t particularly care about covering his own unenthusiasm; the man could probably mistake it for formality.

The man nodded once, acknowledging him. He stared at him with a cryptic look. “What’s your last name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

 _What if I do mind?_ Percy thought again, choking the thought before it could travel out of his mouth. “Jackson.”

“Nice to meet you, Percy Jackson,” the man recited, looking back at his son, who was now closing his book and casually sitting up on the bed.

From that moment, they initiated a conversation in Italian of which Percy understood less than two words, before the man was out the room again, shutting the door behind him.

As he heard hard-edged shoes walk on the wooden floor towards another room, Nico brought both hands to his face, dragging them down as he exhaled.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Percy finally got the chance to ask, closing the backpack still resting on his legs. “And why do I feel like he'd spit in my eye given the chance?”

“It’s not…” Nico started, sighing deeply and keeping his voice discrete. “He’s like that to everyone. He’s just weird.”

“What’d you talked about?” Percy inquired, bothered by that whole conversation. “I was busy regretting not taking Italian as my language elective.”

“He asked if he should cook dinner or something,” Nico stated, getting up from the bed, walking towards him and directly to the computer. “Don’t worry, at least he knows how to cook.”

Percy observed him unlocking his PC account with an unperturbed expression, eyeing the other boy’s sharp features and messed-up hair from his hands running through them just a few minutes earlier. Suddenly, he remembered what was still an awkward sensation in between his legs, and looked down on it just to check on the situation.

Since he had definitely been worse, he decided to remain within the safe space of Nico’s room and wait it out. He hesitated before removing his bag from his legs and positioning it on the floor, involuntarily catching the other’s attention. Looking at him puzzled, Nico only seemed to realize what was going on when following his gaze.

“Oh,” he commented, and Percy’s head perked up. He couldn’t hold back an amused smile as he saw Nico’s cheeks turn pink, going back to observing the screen in front of him. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Well, I’ve been worse,” Percy stated, finding the sight in front of him the most adorable he had ever seen. Maybe only beaten by Nico’s sleeping face. “Being sorry for being hot _is_ a bit weird, though,” Percy joked, laying a kiss on Nico’s warm cheek with a smirk before getting up and throwing himself on Nico’s bed, letting out a loud sigh.

He did not intend to walk downstairs with a half-hard dick and make Nico explain that later for him, so he put his good old breathing techniques into practice.

The notification sound from Nico’s phone went off before the younger boy could retort.

“Is that Hazel?” Percy casually asked, eyes open and staring at Nico’s half-lit ceiling.

“Yeah,” Nico replied. “She says you’re fun to hang out with.”

Percy smiled, proud. “Told ya’ she’d like me.”

“Don’t let that get to your head,” Nico commented, and Percy heard him turning around to face him. “You're still a dumbass.”

“But you love me, don’t you?” Percy bit back then, smirking to no one.

Nico delivered a light kick on his shin, scoffing. “In your dreams.”

“That, too,” Percy argued, rising on his elbows.

He scrutinized Nico’s expression illuminated by the blue light of his phone, and the word “pretty” kept repeating in his mind on loop the more he spent gazing at Nico’s face. Straight, pointed nose, long bottom lashes, strong jawline, and all. Sure, him mom had said he wasn’t a stereotypical beauty, but Percy dug it nonetheless.

The thing that would get him the most, though, was that Nico seemed to not put any effort into his looks. How come Percy would wake up in the morning looking like he was hangover, and Nico just got to be pretty every single moment of his day?

“Don’t you think you’re hot?” He absentmindedly asked, a slight frown forming on his face. Nico’s eyebrows instantly rose in surprise, and his cheeks gained some color when he glanced up at Percy’s questioning look, confused. He shook his head. “Well, I mean…”

“I wasn't exactly popular with girls,” Nico muttered back, eyes falling back on the small screen in his hands.

“How could you not be, boo?” Percy questioned, brow still furrowed. “You've got that… mysterious aura and shit. You know, rockstar-guy type of thing?”

“Is that how _you_ see me?” Nico questioned back, quizzical.

“Yeah!” Percy spit out. His thinking neurons reacted just a second too late. “I mean. No. Yes and no,” _Oh, stop it._ “I mean, it's obvious! You're all dark and shit! Weren't emo guys a thing a few years ago?”

“Yeah, like, in 2007?” Nico replied sarcastically, which Percy actually considered before arguing back.

No way it had been that long. “The point was,” Percy continued then after shaking his head. “Don't you think you're good looking? Like, at all?”

Nico looked at him then, lips pressed together. He turned around towards his screen again, so that Percy couldn’t see his face.

“I have no reason to think that,” he replied, voice unexpressive.

Percy got frustrated. “You can't be serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Nico continued, switching tabs on his computer. “I look at myself every day. I should be able to tell.”

“I don’t agree with that,” Percy argued back, only slightly annoyed. “Y’ know, you probably need glasses. How do you think I popped a boner out of nothing?”

“I bet this wasn’t a first,” Nico commented.

Percy stared at him, slack-jawed. “Wanna repeat that?” He threatened jokingly, trying to ignore the embarrassment in his tone.

Nico chuckled lowly, to which Percy smirked, only slightly bothered by his last comment.

Because, well, it couldn't have been that evident. There was no way Nico had noticed the few times Percy had caught himself staring at him in a clearly not-so-friendly way. Percy had made it so hard for himself to just avoid every kind of tell-tale sign before that whole kiss-with-confession thing a few weeks before. From there on, he was sure there had been at least one time in which Nico could have guessed the depth of the fondness with which Percy would look at him, but not until that point. Or, at least, that was what Percy had always thought.

So, maybe – just maybe – Percy hadn't been as discrete as he would have liked himself to be. And that realization sat in his chest, accompanied by a feeling of uneasiness he couldn't shake off.

Even as they started gaming again when Nico found out Percy (shockingly) hadn’t yet played _The Last of Us_ , and Percy was actually enjoying his narration of the plot and details about its game design, he couldn’t help but linger on the thought that he had felt that same feeling before.

It took him back to his first dates with Annabeth and the crippling feeling that he wasn't enough for her. As degrading as it might have sound, he felt like he guessed a pet dog would feel like. Not that dogs could really think (did they?). But the feeling of being an easily replaceable presence in someone’s life would always hold hands with the thought of not being enough. At least, to someone he admired.

He did admire Annabeth as much as he admired Nico. For different reasons, sure, but the matter was that he couldn’t believe they could see any value in him that didn’t have to do with him only being momentarily useful. He had never thought he'd ever reach the point where he could be considered their equal, for several reasons. It took the form of Annabeth never refusing to help him, but Percy never actually feeling like he could help _her_ with anything outside being the friend that she could kiss when she needed to. He could make her feel good – but that was just always so temporary. Her help had always been long-lasting, from helping him with schoolwork, his mental issues, relationships with his friends, and practical stuff like writing him a study program.

With Nico, it was mostly games. It had been Nico that had recruited him like an employer would do, seeing his potential and putting it to good use. What was Percy doing for him, it was still just a guess. He didn’t actually have a purpose – he was just mindlessly going with the flow.

And he had no idea when to stop doing that to take the matter in his own hands. Someone could simply abandon him on the side of the road for being a hassle, at some point. Which, to be completely transparent, had always been one of his greatest fears. He would never admit that to himself though, which wasn't even a conscious decision.

The feeling didn’t stop as they strolled down the stairs to the kitchen from where the smell of roasted chicken was coming from. And it actually got worse when he caught a glimpse of Nico's dad standing in the kitchen, checking for something in the fridge.

Table already set, they sat down on the tall cushioned chairs, Nico and his dad on each table's end-side, and Percy in between.

He still thought it was a bit too formal-looking for it to be a casual dinner with his crush's parent, but he left it the benefit of the doubt. He still had no idea of the type of person Nico’s dad was, he reminded himself when feeling intimidated by the man’s scrutinizing glance.

He tried not to let his simple and quick mindset have the best of him as they started eating in silence. Which Percy hated, by the way.

Needless to say, he understood where Nico had gotten his habit of keeping his thoughts to himself.

“So, Percy,” Nico's dad spoke over the sound of him chewing a fat piece of chicken leg, making him realize he was probably being a little too loud. “Tell me a bit more about what you're doing at the moment.”

That was such a general question, Percy genuinely didn’t know how to answer.

When he realized that probably nothing he could to say would have sounded good in the man's eyes, he gave up even searching for an answer. “I'm still in high school,” he stated, trying to look as relaxed as he would have liked to feel. “I'm probably going to work in the summer and then see from there. Don't really like the perspective of college for now.”

He realized that probably had _not_ been that good of an answer just after it left his mouth. Since he couldn’t just take it back, though, he patched it up as best as he could. “I'm probably going, though. Just don’t know which one yet,” he lied, hoping to end the topic.

His prayers weren’t answered.

“Which one would be your best pick, though?” Nico's dad asked, to which Percy heard Nico sigh. That couldn’t be a good sign.

He replied after a moment of pondering. “Uh, I guess NYU. That should be it.”

The man replied with a cryptic low hum, which Percy found as frustrating as the fact that he couldn’t manage to keep quiet while eating.

“Dad, did you sign that paper I was talking about this morning?” Nico interrupted, and Percy felt so grateful he would have gladly kissed him.

The man’s focus seemed to shift from him to his son, and Percy felt like he could finally eat in peace. Nico’s dad sighed silently, casually looking down at his own plate. “What is that about?”

“I already told you about the tournament, dad,” Nico explained, sounding annoyed and noisily stabbing his food. “I just need you to sign since I'm not eighteen yet. It's easy.”

There was this weird silence in which Percy could almost hear the man on the other side of the table thinking.

“Oh, right, that thing about games,” he stated dismissively, to which Percy heard Nico go still for a moment.

He couldn’t blame the other boy for getting irritated at his dad's tone. Percy himself would have liked to get up and experimentally pull the man’s ponytail just to get a reaction.

“Dad, please…” Nico started, to which his dad raised a hand, interrupting him.

“Spare me the details,” his dad spoke. “The less I know, the better. If that's how you want to waste your time, it's your choice.”

And now Percy was starting to get pissed. He attacked his glass of water like he was trying to strangle it, making himself look indifferent as he drank to ease the acid coming up his throat.

“Do we have to talk about this here?” Nico questioned, which seemed like a pretty valid question to Percy.

Nico's dad evidently disagreed. “Well, since you two are both here, I thought it would be good to discuss this now,” he calmly explained. “Considering you still have to raise your grades of ten points at least, and you're still here acting like you can put more effort into games than into school.”

“Yeah, right, like it's ever good enough,” Nico mentioned in a low tone, laughing sourly.

Percy felt himself look at Nico with surprise before realizing and turning to look at the man on the other side with what he hoped was an icy stare.

“Excuse me?” The man asked, to which Nico shook his head.

“Nothing,” Nico stated, and Percy couldn’t help but notice the pretty strong grip he had on his fork.

“You're not going anywhere with that attitude, Nico,” his dad warned.

“Wonder who took that from,” someone spoke, and it took a couple seconds for Percy to recognize that as being his own voice.

A sense of dread fell over him as he gazed at his plate and coughed, trying to think about what to say to try and cover that up.

Nothing came up.

“Sorry,” Percy mentioned then, completely avoiding eye contact with both people at the table, mortified. “Bad joke. Wasn't funny.”

But, Nico laughed. Percy actually heard him choke back a laughter, staring at his plate, and he couldn’t hold back the smile on his face in turn. Hell, he had just made fun of his dad, and he was going along with it.

Christ, Percy adored him.

“Percy,” Nico' father spoke, and all the warm feeling inside Percy's chest faded almost too quickly. “I’d suggest you not to talk to me like that if you want to keep seeing my son.”

Percy swallowed, rushing to apologize. “Sure, sorry…”

“Like you could keep me from seeing people,” Nico chimed, to Percy's surprise. “I'm not twelve anymore, if you haven't already noticed.”

“You will not be an adult until you prove me you are one,” the man spoke, tone icy. “And right now, you're showing me you have not grown up at all since middle school.”

“Oh, yeah, ‘cause you're so present in my life you didn’t even realize I came out of middle school, like, three years ago,” Nico replied sourly, and Percy would be cheering for him he hadn't been at that table, too, in that moment, casually right in the middle of the discussion. “I don’t expect you to even remember my birthday.”

“Enough with that, Nico,” his dad spoke with the coldest, severe tone, not even looking at his son. “Go to your room.”

Nico remained silent for a moment, staring at the man in front of him. Then, scoffing, he let his fork fall on the plate. “With pleasure,” he concluded before swiftly getting up, walking behind him towards the stairs.

Percy didn’t hesitate to follow him.

He placed his own fork on the table getting up from his seat and, before dashing off, delivered his most unimpressed and judging look at the man's face.

He was glad he had treated himself to the man’s snotty look as he shut the door behind him, entering Nico's room and watching as he picked up his backpack from beside his bed and started throwing his Nintendo DS and a couple notebooks inside.

Percy stared, pieces falling into place in his head. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I'm coming with you,” Nico simply stated, filling up Percy's stomach with happiness and fondness. Despite that, he focused on acting responsible for once and stop the situation before it could slip out of hand.

“Woah, Nico, I get it, but…” he started, getting closer to the other boy. “I don’t think this is the solution.”

Nico turned around to look at him up and down, confused, and then scoffed. “I'm not coming to New York. I'm just going out until he calms the fuck down,” he explained, going back to fill up his bag. “I need to get out of here.”

 _Oh_ , Percy thought. That made a bit more sense. He had unironically watched too many teen dramas in the last months.

“Right,” Percy replied, hoping Nico couldn’t spot his disappointment. “Sorry, anyway. I speak before I think.”

“That was funny,” Nico mentioned, turning towards him, a corner of his mouth turned up. “He can't take jokes though. I don’t remember the last time I've seen my dad laugh.”

Percy looked at him surprised, allowing himself to feel satisfied about his comment.

He had never thought Nico would consider him funny. He almost never laughed when he was actually trying to make him.

He didn’t have time to think about that, though, because Nico had already thrown his backpack over his shoulder and was walking out of the room in a rush.

Percy blinked before following close behind and towards the stairs after hastily grabbing his own backpack from the floor.

He didn’t speak as they arrived at the bottom of the stairs and Nico grabbed his grey, oversized hoodie from the clothing hanger at the entrance. However, as he opened the door, Percy did turn around when he heard the man’s steps approaching the entrance.

Nico was already walking outside when Percy’s eyes found the man’s.

He held his stare, possibly also menacingly squinting his eyes in the process.

“Nicola,” the man called, authoritarian, after the younger boy. One foot already outside the door, Percy felt Nico turn around without averting his gaze from the man’s stern expression. “Where do you think you’re going?”

There was a pause, then, in which Percy could have thrown his relationship with the man down the toilet and flushed it without a second thought.

Luckily, Nico spoke first.

“Wherever the fuck I want,” he replied back, cold, before confidently walking out.

Percy delivered a satisfied smirk to the man in black before quickly following Nico out, closing the door behind him.

He was pretty sure hearing Nico curse had now become one of his favorite things in the world.

As he stepped beside the younger boy walking the stone path towards the main road, he couldn’t help himself. “Well, that was kinda cool,” he stated, burying a hand down his jeans’ pocket. “Have you rehearsed it or something?”

“Maybe,” Nico replied, low. Then, he shrugged, lowering his head. “Just a couple times.”

Percy glanced at him, chuckling amusedly, and he didn’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around Nico’s shoulders before grinning and glancing around. “So, we’re heading to the station?”

“No,” Nico replied, gazing straight ahead now. “I want to take you somewhere,” he continued, glancing up at Percy. “You probably won’t like it.”

Percy’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t think of a place he wouldn’t have liked, if it was Nico taking him there. He probably wouldn’t have thought twice about accepting a death-metal concert date if it meant being with Nico.

“What makes you think that?”

Nico casually shrugged again. “You’ll see.”

Percy looked down at him, eyeing Nico’s usual, set expression.

He smiled a bit, looking ahead again and opted for a change in topic. “Did your dad just call you Nicola?”

“That’s my full name,” Nico explained, one hand playing with his backpack’s strings. “Nico’s just easier to pronounce.”

Percy shrugged. “I kinda like it, though,” he admitted, nose in the air. “Wait, what’s your dad’s name instead?”

Nico sighed, for some mysterious reason. “Adelchi,” he replied. “He doesn’t like it, though. That’s why he never tells people unless it’s necessary.”

Percy had surely never heard that name before, so he tried repeating it in his mind until he conclude he definitely had no idea how that spelled out.

“It’s got a dark vibe,” Percy thought out loud. “Kinda fits him.”

Nico let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah. Even more than you think,” he concluded, muttering the last part.

Percy was about to perplexedly ask why before he removed his arm from Nico’s shoulders when the younger boy turned left towards a narrow road. It seemingly headed deeper into the green area Percy had noticed behind Nico’s house. He followed without questioning him too much. The trees on the sides were definitely doing a great job covering them from the evening sun.

He looked around, and he let the quiet of the place sink inside him. He thought Nico surely seemed to belong in a place like that. Percy could easily see him buy a house in the North-West countryside and live there in isolation for years on end. Definitely something Percy would have dreaded, but to each his own.

He still dreamed of Nico falling in love with Florida’s beaches at first sight, but he recognized that as being only a dream. The bottom line was, there were still many things Percy would have loved to know about him. So many, actually, that Percy couldn’t come up with any questions in occasions like these.

Just as he was thinking hard about how to initiate an intimate, but not too mushy, kind of conversation, he realized Nico had stopped walking and was now looking at him.

He stopped abruptly when the younger boy cleared his throat. “Oh, sorry…” Percy started, voice quickly dying in his throat when he looked at the imposing, wide open gates in front of him. “What the…”

It took him a moment to read the sign posted on the hard stone walls to their side. “A _cemetery_?”

“I told you you wouldn’t like it,” Nico muttered, already stepping forward while adjusting his backpack on his right shoulder.

Percy glanced at him, staggered. “No, it’s not that!” He tried. “It’s just…”

“Kinda weird? Yeah,” Nico finished, walking inside and turning towards him, waiting for Percy to follow.

“Not exactly _weird_ , but kinda…” Percy corrected, looking back from Nico’s puzzled face and the cemetery sign a couple times. He made a face. “Kinda…”

“Please don’t…”

“Emo?” He concluded, to which Nico let out an exasperated sigh.

“I hate you,” the younger boy uttered, defeated, dismissively turning around to walk the path towards the first gravestones.

Percy looked at him go before walking inside, eyeing the metal gate behind himself while chuckling.

To be honest, he didn’t really care about the place being a graveyard. This was probably just his second or third time in his life being surrounded by dead people, but it didn’t feel particularly creepy.

There was more of a pervasive and calming atmosphere all over the place, and he didn’t necessarily dislike that. He was just not used to anything quiet and static. He could clearly see why Nico would enjoy something in that fashion, though.

“You come here often?” He asked, mindlessly lowering his voice, noticing how Nico seemed to naturally find his way through the grey stone paths.

“I used to, up until a year ago,” the other explained, taking a path to the right towards a wider, greener area with oak and pine trees. “It’s quiet and there’s always just a few people around. The panic doesn’t really catch me here.”

“Well, makes sense if there’s no one around,” he reasoned, suddenly attentive at the mention of Nico’s panic. “Kinda like libraries.”

“There’s _people_ in libraries, Percy.”

“Yeah, well, but it’s quiet…”

“That’s not the only issue,” Nico concluded as they stepped into what looked like the main road, surrounded by monumental gravestones closely scattered around them on the grass. “I wanted my mom to be buried here, but my dad thought it would have been better to cremate her and bring her back to Venice. He still hasn’t made the trip, though, because he’d want me and Bianca to be there and I…” he continued, lowering his head. He hesitated. “You know. Airports and airplanes are not really ideal.”

Percy thought back to the urn he had seen back at Nico’s house. Then, he thought about what had happened on that sofa just a few hours before.

For a brief moment, he didn’t think he had ever felt that uncomfortable.

“I figured,” was Percy’s hasty reply, desperately trying to shake off that image from his mind. “I’d like to go to Venice once.”

“It’s pretty at night,” Nico continued, luckily completely unaware of Percy’s thoughts. Then, he paused for a moment or two. “You could come with us one day.”

Percy turned to look at him, eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. He observed the other’s lips flatten as his eyes turned to the side. “Well, there’d be my dad and probably my sister, so it could be weird for you, and…”

“I’d love to,” Percy interrupted him, smiling brightly. “I don’t like planes either, though. I got a fear of heights.”

Nico glanced up at him in turn. He frowned, puzzled. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Percy admitted, shrugging lightly. “I got restless the first time my mom had to physically keep me down on the seat. After that, we always travelled at night ‘cause at least I would sleep for majority of the trip.”

Nico chuckled and averted his gaze, a small smile appearing on his face.

Percy imitated him. Then, he sucked in a breath. Since that appeared to be the right moment, he let himself ask. “Have you ever been to Florida?”

Nico frowned yet again then, head perking up. “No. Why?”

Percy nervously bit his lip. “I don’t know, would you like to?”

He felt the other look at him up and down before letting out a soft chuckle. “Sure. I still have to see the beach, I guess.”

The older boy looked down at him, searching for something like insincerity in his tone. When he found none, though, Percy let himself grin yet again and briefly giggle. He messed up Nico's hair with a hand before lowering himself and happily kiss him on the cheek.

Percy knew Nico wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about the whole thing. Florida was sunny, full of people, noise, color, and the sea. All things that didn’t seem that fitting for a lone gamer in a small NJ town like Nico was. Just the fact that he would have possibly agreed to travel with him to somewhere that far from his own usual environment spoke louder than his words.

And Percy felt so grateful and joyful that he was finding the casual graveyard-strolling thing almost pleasant. And that was surely something he wouldn’t have expected, ever.

Sitting down on a white bench in the middle of the lawn, Nico wore his grey hoodie and let his backpack fall close to his seat. Percy placed his own on the grass, and gazed at the tombstones placed not too far from them, on the other side of the road. A couple mausoleums stood to their right at close walking distance, but Percy didn’t pay that much attention to them as much as to his own thoughts.

A corner of his mouth turned up. “Y’know…” he started, amused. “I think this is exactly where I thought I'd never be.”

Nico chuckled, burying his hands into his hoodie's pockets. “Yeah, you don’t look like a cemetery guy.”

Percy let out a laugh. “Guess so,” he replied. “Will your dad let you game at the tournament?”

He heard Nico exhale silently from his nose. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” he reassured him. “My sister's on my side, anyway. And he already agreed once, so changing his mind again shouldn’t be that hard. Especially considering Hazel is in, too.”

Percy hummed, hopeful. He was praying for Nico to be right, despite he would have gladly broken a bone if that meant letting Nico compete with them. He didn’t say anything, though, because that did sound pretty pathetic even to his own ears.

And, talking about pathetic, there was still something sitting in the back of his head, just waiting to be let out.

At the thought, his leg started bouncing on the ground and he quickly averted his gaze to look down at his own shoes.

It shouldn’t have been that difficult, he thought. They had just made out for something like the fifth time already. What was a date compared to that?

But, just beside his will to ask Nico, there sat his evident self-worth issues. Being dispensable was still how he expected Nico to see him, and the possibility of the other getting bored of him right after the tournament because he had just fulfilled his main purpose was still _very_ present in his head. And being let down after having asked Nico for a commitment was a seriously terrifying thought.

“So…” Percy started, forcing himself to speak. He really didn’t want to do it, but he thought that inevitable by that point. He had promised himself he would, and now he couldn’t let his self-sabotaging get in the way again. “I was thinking about something.”

Nico’s head perked up, glancing at Percy with a questioning look.

Percy discretely breathed in. “Um…” he hesitated. “Have you ever been on, like, a date?”

There was a cryptic silence from Nico’s part, which did nothing to reassure him.

“I don’t think so,” was Nico’s objective reply.

Percy turned to him then, kind of puzzled. Then, he saw the cluelessness on Nico’s face, and understood that wasn’t simply a way for him to avoid the question.

“I mean,” Percy continued, trying to reformulate. “Did anyone ever ask you out? Like, dinner out one evening, or just to hang out one afternoon, or…”

“I know what a _date_ is, Percy,” Nico interrupted him, and Percy noticed his cheeks had gained some color. “But, no, not that I remember.”

Percy struggled to believe that for a second, but then he remembered Nico being a homeschooled, socially anxious fifteen-year-old, and it kinda suddenly made sense.

He cleared his throat, averting his gaze again. “So…” Percy continued, pondering. “Is that something appealing to you, or just… nah?”

There was that charged silence again, and Percy hoped Nico would not realize what exactly he was asking _before_ actually proposing it to him in clear terms, because that would have been strange. And embarrassing.

Nico shifted on his seat, lowering his head a bit. “Depends.”

Percy did his absolute best not to let out an exasperated sigh. He had brought that upon himself, anyway, trying to be all sneaky and shit. “Okay, fine, what about me?” Percy blurted out, turning around on his seat to face Nico. “What about a date with _me_?”

Nico perked his head up again in surprise, meeting Percy’s expectant gaze for a couple moments. Then, he averted his gaze to the side, seemingly trying to hold back a smile.

Percy couldn’t believe his own ears when he heard Nico starting to genuinely laugh.

Color instantly rose to his face, and he looked straight ahead, cursing at himself for always choosing the wrong fucking approach.

Something inside him stung with humiliation at the thought Nico must have been laughing at him. “Fuck, man, you didn’t have to actually laugh, y’know,” Percy muttered over Nico’s (admittedly beautiful) laughter, rubbing at his eyes. “Was it that bad?”

Nico finally turned back around, looking at him with one of his rare smiles on his face. He was rubbing at his eyes, and Percy didn’t know if the redness on his face had to do with the fact he had been laughing or for anything else. “No, it’s not that,” he finally corrected him. “It’s just… you’re asking me on a date now. In a cemetery. It’s funny.”

Briefly looking around at the tombstones and mausoleums, the fresh wind blowing through the few trees standing beside them, Percy had to admit that had been kinda weird.

He reluctantly chuckled, still holding his hands on his face to cover his mouth and cheeks. “I probably thought that to be your style, or something.”

Nico chuckled again. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m the ghost boy, right?”

“Always have been, always will,” Percy replied, finally placing both his hands to grapple the lower border of the bench. Then, he lowered his head, about to speak again.

“Yes, anyway,” Nico suddenly stated, crossing his arms tightly on his chest.

Percy needed a couple moments to register that.

His head perked up to look at Nico, hopeful confusion on his face. “Yes what?”

“I will,” Nico suddenly lowered his voice, raising his shoulders. His cheeks were still tinted red. “Go on a date. With you.”

Percy’s eyes glued on Nico’s face for far more time they should have, before his mouth broke into a huge grin.

Then, he lowered his head yet again, giggling quietly.

“What?” Nico suddenly asked, defensive, before Percy could throw an arm around the younger boy yet again, leaving a peck on his cheek and then moving on to his hair, leaving a series of affectionate kisses all over his head. Nico giggled then, trying to scoot away while Percy held him in place. “Jeez, is it really that big of a deal?”

“Shut up, ghostie,” was Percy’s quiet reply as he crossed his arms around Nico’s shoulders, locking him in place. He held him close as he chuckled happily, gazing at the moving leaves of the tree branches just above their heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> really hope you enjoyed reading because i did. 2 more chapters to go!! pls don't expect the updates to be fast i'm just hopelessly running through life and uni deadlines i'm sorry --


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